I attended the City Council meeting of Monday, May 7, and informed them that the organizers of the Car Show the following weekend had violated their Special Event Permit. The Car Show event operator was in attendance.
Excuses heard at the next City Council meeting, on May 14, included
1) The event operator needed more than a day or two to achieve conditions. Plain truth: They had known the conditions since April 25, the same as last year, and they violated them then, too.
2) It just was not on the City Council’s radar. Plain truth: The Car Show has been held the Saturday before Mother’s Day for nine years. I told them of the violations last year after they happened.
3) They need a checklist. Plain truth: I thought the permit was a checklist with 45 items.
One of the conditions from this year’s permit: “Public Notification: The event operator will release, at his cost, a public announcement notice in the local newspaper, that includes a map, two weeks before the event, to run once each week, providing information, a map, and the notice that there is no Car Show parking in the residential community.”
An ad never was released, even when brought to their attention beforehand. This was a direct violation of the Culver City Special Event Permit that was granted to the Exchange Club of Culver City by the city’s Committee on Permits and Licenses. This year the Car Show was in violation again with the failure to publish. As I said on May 7 at the City Council meeting, I brought it to the attention of the Exchange Club, the City Council and the City Manager. On May 9, I brought it to the attention of the city’s Committee on Permits and Licenses. On May 10, the ads that were published failed to “include a map” and “notice that there is no Car Show parking in the residential community.”
Funny thing is, they managed to post an ad in 2010. It would have been easy to recycle the map and notice in 2011 and 2012. They had recycled an article about a car from 2010 and reran it in 2011.
This is the plain and easy to understand truth. Don’t be foopled by excuses.
The promoter further slapped the neighborhood in the face when he announced at the May 7 City Council meeting that there was no parking in the residential neighborhood for the Car Show. The slap was, he only stated Watseka Avenue, which has one small apartment building, with zero non-metered street parking spots close-by. Cardiff has zero non-metered street parking spots and zero residents. Lastly, he mentioned Ince Boulevard, which only has non-metered spots nearly to Lucerne.
The Downtown Neighborhood Assn.’s main area was blatantly ignored verbally and completely ignored in required newspaper notification. We were given the equivalent of Rockefeller Salute, by the promoter’s shameless and brazen disregard of their Special Event Permit.
Mr. Anderson may be contacted at cary@culvercity.TV
