[Editor’s Note: Unsatisfied by the City Council’s announcement on Monday night that spot enforcement of safety equipment violations at the new Skateboard Park had been instituted by the Police Dept., community activist Cary Anderson says stronger, more visible enforcement is necessary.]
The city’s method of operation is to say one thing and to do another. Bill LaPointe, the director of the Parks and Recreation Dept., has proven that.
Does the Police Dept. enforce motorcycle safety laws? They probably do.
Then why not enforce bicycle and skater helmet safety laws?
A Sign of the What?
Over the holidays, freeway signs say “Click It or Ticket,” referring to seatbelt safety laws. Click the strap on your bicycle safety helmet or get a ticket on the streets of Culver City?
This is never going to happen if they don’t bother to enforce the state safety-equipment laws at the Skateboard Park.
I do not understand the politics of Culver City. Other communities enforce their safety laws. Why don’t we?
Measuring Success
I have heard it said twice, at both a City Council meeting and a Parks and Recreation Commission meeting, that the Skateboard Park is a big success because of the large number of skaters it has attracted.
But quality, not quantity, should be the measure of any success. If lots of people use the freeway, does that make the freeway successful? If 95 percent of them drive at 100 miles an hour, is a freeway successful?
If 95 percent of vehicles fail to stop at a Stop sign, is the Stop sign successful? Around 95 percent of the drivers in my neighborhood run the Stop sign. Is that a success?
Whose Responsibility?
Contradictions: Is it the parents’ responsibility to make their children who skate wear safety helmets? The mayor does not want to close the Skateboard Park during school hours because there are adults who want to use it when it is less crowded.
You are using the kids as an excuse when you know it is not kids using the park all the time. It looks to me like an easy copout.
Presumably since some of the safety violators are adults, their parents are not going to make them wear safety equipment.
Pretty Easy, Isn’t It?
Quit passing the blame to get out of responsibility.
Quit making excuses. How could something be easier to enforce? Police admit they drive by the Skateboard Park all the time. But people know they don’t enforce. My videos have shown that the skaters in the park aren’t worried about what could happen to them.
On one of my videos, you can even hear a kid in the park making a siren sound as the police pull someone over.
Making Money
My daughter and I saw the red-camera light flash four different times at the intersection. The red-light cameras, as a form of enforcement, are a moneymaker for the city.
Why doesn’t the city have the political will to enforce safety equipment laws at the Skateboard Park? Because it is mostly kids. They are worried parents are going to complain when their kids get cited.
Go to my website, culvercity.tv. It clearly shows that enforcement is about money and not safety. Officially, they have had one broken arm and also minor injuries, when two people collided.
Perfect Record?
A Parks and Rec Commissioner, Anita Shapiro, stated they had had zero injuries in the old Skateboard Park. Hard to believe that since 1999, they had zero injuries.
Today, two people jaywalked in front of the Police Dept. K-9 Unit. The people were parking in the park and jaywalking to get to work on the south side of Jefferson Boulevard.
I have seen City Councilmember Steve Rose jaywalk in front of a police sergeant. Rose was checking out why the sergeant was checking out the fact that Trader Joe’s was literally taking up half of Ince with product.
Getting in the Way
That has been an ongoing thing with me, too. Half of the people turning right from Washington onto Ince are forced to dodge product. Police respond only because a city employee called them. The only reason the city employee called was because I told the city about the problem.
The city employee told me he would call when he got back to City Hall. I handed him my cell phone. His next excuse was, he didn’t know the police number. I dialed it for him.
Meantime, I got a whole lecture from the police sergeant about how Trader Joe’s is paying taxes to the city and if we lost businesses, we would lose police resources and we would look instead like Inglewood.
Interpret Please?
I asked him what that meant. I was born in Inglewood. I moved from Inglewood to Culver City in 1986. The sales tax that Trader Joe’s pays comes from who? Residents, and others who buy product.
Trader Joe’s is going to move because they are forced to comply? That is ridiculous. The old Trader Joe’s location in Los Angeles did not block traffic.
Speaking of Spending Money
On Tuesday, they were doing a land survey in the middle of the Skateboard Park. I asked the guys why. They said the contractor used less concrete because the city wanted to make it cheaper. So now they have to figure out where the actual park is.
The skaters were dodging the surveyors in the park. On Wednesday, they were doing a traffic audit at Duquesne and Jefferson.
They spent money on that, to do traffic studies, but they can’t do enforcement.
