Last Monday reminded me of the folktale Chicken Little.
http://www.thefrontpageonline.com/new/articles1-10765/11OallclockParkingMetersandSundayMetersAreSmellingDoomed
It was not a total surprise because I had read about the Downtown Business Assn. Candidates Forum. A forum that pressured candidates to ignore the $161,100 professional study in favor of anecdotally biased restaurant owners concerns.
http://www.thefrontpageonline.com/new/articles1-10711/
Evidently the Downtown Business Assn. doesn't know Culver City made it into the Top 20 of a list of the Most Walkable Cities in the United States.
“Culver City’s thriving restaurant and retail scene, safe and appealing streets, and connections to transit make it an ideal place to walk,” said Culver City’s Mayor Mehaul O’Leary. “With the opening of the Expo Light Rail Station fast approaching and more streetscape and mixed-use projects in the pipeline, we expect that Culver City will become even more pedestrian-friendly in the years to come.”
http://culvercity.patch.com/articles/culver-city-ranks-among-most-walkable-cities-in-the-nation
Last Monday the DBA complained, to the City Council, that people could not park at meters for free after 6 p.m. or all day on Sundays.
The Politics of Parking(PoP) at work.
“Demonstrating the power of citizens when they organize, the Downtown Business Assn., infuriated by this month’s extension of live parking meters until 11 p.m., and from six days a week to seven, rounded up its motivated troops for a double invasion.”
“Less than two weeks ago, a small but muscular band of DBA’ers fired their opening shot in a City Council Candidates Forum at The Actors’ Gang. They dominated the morning and issued a warning of events to come by bombarding the six office-seekers with bitter denunciations of what they called business-killing regulations”.
“Since he came to Culver City five years ago, Mr. Schulman said, dinner at Akasha has been a 2- to 2½-hour experience. Patrons could relax because the meters were off. Now, to their nagging annoyance, Akasha staffers find themselves running out to the street to feed the starving meters for their would-be harried diners.”
I was at the meeting and gave my opinion, but it never made it into the article. These restaurant owners would lose on the TV show “Are You Smarter Then a 5th Grader?” They have no basic math skills. Meters cost $1.50 per hour. So a three-hour meal would cost $4.50 for the meter. Plus someone has to walk out after two hours to put more money in. Directly behind Akasha is a 333-car parking structure. First two hours are free, then $1 per hour. The three-hour meal would cost $1 now. The reason for the meter and hour increase was to get people to use the structures and not hog the two-hour meters. Hogging the meters for more than two hours is not legal.
The city simply has an enforcement issue. Two Saturdays ago, between 9:10 and 9:23, I drove the area and counted 57 meter violations(meters flashing red) and one red curb violation. Never saw a single ticket. The City Council had put the policy in place to create meter turnover. Looks as if they soon will cave in to political pressure during an election year.
To see Item C-2 on last night’s City Council Agenda was a huge disappointment.
On March 26, 2012, after receiving public comment regarding potential impacts to downtown businesses of the extended hours of operation of the metered parking, the City Council directed the City Manager to agendize a discussion of a proposed resolution that, if adopted, would direct the Chief of Police to suspend the enforcement of the extended hours of operation (6 p.m. to 11p.m. Monday through Saturday and 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Sundays).
As a companion item to the extension of meter hours of operation, the City Council also authorized the recruitment of two parking enforcement officers and two community service officers in the Police Dept. Revenue to fund these positions was to come from the increase in both the hourly metered rate and the extended meter hours. Should the City Council suspend enforcement of the extended hours of operation, the resolution also contains direction to temporarily suspend filling these positions until the City Council can consider the alternatives to be presented by staff prior to the conclusion of the suspension period.
The City Council has received public comment regarding impacts to Downtown neighborhoods for years but has only enforced the Car Show one year. The DBA said jump. How high? said the Council. And would you like me to do a back flip?
With 57 expired meters flashing red two Saturdays ago, what does the DBA have to complain about? Enforcement of meters has always been lax. The daily average is 13 meter tickets a day for the entire enforcement department, for the entire town. In a 13-minutes span of time, I counted 57 expired meters in just the Downtown area. How can a department be so incompetent without collusion being a factor?
The meter price increase caused more intrusion into the neighborhood. The increase in Parking Enforcement Officer effectiveness was also going to get gutted last night. The city is going to go back to the status quo with only a 50- cent an hour increase.
The status quo was meter-hogging after 6 p.m.
The status quo is no two-hour limit enforced.
I used the strong word “collusion” previously in this letter. I had the wishful thinking that the status quo of letting “special people”(restaurant owners) park illegally for years would be stopped with the possible hiring of new and ethical PEO's by July 1. They could have been indoctrinated into the culture of special favors for special people. But I had hopes that ethics would prevail.
A sworn uniformed officer or possible a Sergeant (Loken) from the Police Dept. actual wrote a ticket against one of the Untouchables last month. I applaud this law enforcement officer for bucking the status quo and culture.
The owner of the vehicle then had the nerve to place a note on his dashboard, warning law enforcement who he was. Culver City Parking Enforcement Officers have failed to write this Untouchable tickets for years. Want proof the note worked? A car less than 50 feet away was given a $55 meter violation ticket while the Untouchable had been illegally parked for hours. He continues to do so without fear of getting a ticket from the Parking Enforcement Officers.
Amazing that people will allow special favors for special people. Then again the words “beneficiary” and “major donation” blind people's ethics.
This warrants repeating. One restaurant owner complained last Monday that people would have to feed the meters if their dinner went over two hours. The restaurant has a 333-vehicle parking structure behind it. For $3 you can park at a meter for two hours; you can illegally extend your time for another hour for $1.50, a total of $4.50. The logical choice would be to park in a structure for two hours free, then pay $1 for the third hour. Evidently one of the Most Walkable Cities in the United States is not – people want to park at the meter spots closest to restaurants for free. This was evident two Saturdays ago when a survey of the Downtown parking meters showed that 57 cars were parked illegally at expired meters. Not one ticket was seen. That is cold hard fact vs. the DBA’s anecdotes.
That truly is the Politics of Parking (PoP).
Mr. Anderson may be contacted at Cary@CulverCity.TV
