Two former City Hall officials resume their periodic critiques of the City Council:

“Except for Meghan Sahli-Wells, at least two of the remaining Council members are reacting at meetings instead of leading,” said the feminine half of the assessment team.

“I don’t know if I would even want to be up there.”

She mentioned the running debate over Airbnb in Culver City. “I don’t think renting rooms in an R-1 zone (single-family homes) is right. It tips the scales. It changes R-1 zoning into something else.”

Her partner spoke up.

While Airbnb rooms in Culver City are being advertised at $20 per night, the gentleman pointed out the City Council has the option of banning the practice or regulating it.

He was asked if it makes more sense or little sense to embrace Airbnb in a modest community of 40,000.

“Given that the majority of our residential zones are R-1,” he said, “it has a greater potential impact on the negative side in Culver City than in a community more spread out.

“If you take the charges made against Airbnb, that they change the character of the neighborhood, that they create more people traffic and more car traffic, these factors will have more of a traumatic effect on a small community than on a larger one.”

For example, he said, Airbnb “may work well in a community with wide streets, plenty of on-street parking, sufficient off-street parking.

“Airbnb would work less well in a community that has single-lane streets with parking on the street.”

His partner broke in. “Some responsibility for this situation is shame on our city,” she said. “Some people have turned their garages into living space or storage space. Therefore people no longer are parking in their garages. They park on the street instead, cluttering the street. But people in the neighborhoods tolerate it, though I don’t know why.”

(To be continued)