At tonight’s 7 o’clock City Council meeting at City Hall, the city of Culver City will be acting like a herd of ostriches again.
They will once again ignore the parking “issues” caused by 10,000 people coming to the Car Show.
Even if you packed 5 persons into every car that comes to park in the 2,000 total parking structure space, how about the everyone else?
How about the local business employees that rent a lot of the 2,000 spaces? Last year, a resident on Duquesne was unable to get out of her own driveway because it was blocked by a car of someone who went to the Car Show.
“No Car Show Parking” signs were ignored last year.
This year the city wants more officers manning the barricades on the perimeter. Last year the city had one parking enforcement officer in the entire city.
Looks like this year we will have only one again.
Last year’s parking enforcement officer was running around the whole town like a chicken with his head cut off. After calling in a car that was illegally parked on my street (one- hour parking and the car had been there for two hours), the one parking enforcement officer showed up two hours later to chalk the tires.
Instead of coming back in one hour — remember there was a one-hour parking limit without a permit — he came back over 3 hours later. That car finally got a ticket.
Meanwhile, 4 more cars without permits were parked by the ticketed car, and those people walked to the Car Show without penalty.
The City Council last Monday saw my video proving that. They ignored it. It is much easier to be part of a herd of ostriches and ignore the problems. If you put your head in the sand, then you can claim you don't see any problems.
It is culpable deniability.
If the city wants to make money to offset the Car Show costs, then have a second parking enforcement officer work on the Car Show Saturday, only in the Downtown area.
In that case, the city will make money hand over fist. The city will make the cost of the parking enforcement officer's wages many times over, and they cost the city less than a police officer.
The City Council and the (sponsoring) Exchange Club were given a thinking-out-of-the-box idea by Catherine Yanda that would eliminate the Downtown parking problem and make money for the Exchange Club.
Offsite parking, with a shuttle bus from West L.A. College.
Anyone ever go see the parked Rose Parade floats after the Rose Parade? No one is parking in the surrounding neighborhood. People park offsite, and they are bussed in.
Culver City has clean burning CNG buses. During the week, a bus runs from West L.A. College.
Why not for the Car Show Saturday?
Answer: Because it is much easier to stick with the status quo.
It is much easier to be part of a herd of ostriches and ignore the problems. If you put your head in the sand, then you can claim you don't see any problems. It is culpable deniability.
Mr. Anderson may be contacted at caryanderson@ca.rr.com
