By Michael Gotz
I have lived in Culver City since 1978. I have been active in civic, school, religious, and many other community affairs. This is my town. It is also Andy Weissman's town, Ken Smith's town, and it is the town of all citizens who share certain community values and have volunteered their time and energy to make this a better place.
We are Democrats, Republicans, environmentalists, pro-growth, anti-growth…the whole gamut. We who are active in this town often disagree about certain social and community issues and policies. But we all agree on one overriding principle:
We do not attack our community institutions, neither by words nor deeds. We do not impede or obstruct their good works.
Grace Lutheran Church is a community institution. It provides way more than religious services. It has opened its doors and offered meeting space to a number of groups with diverse interests: Boy Scouts, AA, barbershop quartet singing to name examples. The church, in other words, engages in good works. These extra-religious meetings usually occur in the evenings. In order to attend, if people do not live within walking distance, they need to park their vehicles.
The Greenbergs and some of their neighbors on Farragut Drive, through word and deed, have evidenced that they choose not to adhere to the overriding principle. They are waging a war against the church in the form of obstructing the ability of meeting attendees to park their cars on a — let's get this straight — public street. If you think that the street belongs to the people whose houses abut it, why should we pay taxes for their trash pick-up and street cleaning? We do help pay for them to have those public services on their “private” street.
Yes, they are afforded some (really stupid and selfish) legal rights, as Mr. Greenberg correctly indicated in his last letter to the editor of this newspaper.
And so, likewise, all of us are free to attack any of our traditional community institutions, the Senior Center, Vets Auditorium, Temple Akiba, even Grace Lutheran. No doubt some of us have grievances against these places. Yet we choose not to avail ourselves of these rights. Why not? Because we care about this town, we want a neighborly community, we honor and support good works.
I call on all good citizens to stand up for Grace Lutheran. The City Council should rescind the parking restrictions (No Parking at Any Time) on one block of Farragut.
We do not need people in our town who impede the good works of others, who adhere only to principles of litigation and contention, who think they understand the laws because they can read word for word ordinances but really have no knowledge of the spirit of the laws and what they are used for.
Come on, everybody. Let's support our institutions/ Let’s support Grace Lutheran Church. It is the right thing to do.
Mr. Gotz may be contacted at michaelgotz@gmail.com
