Alert: We Need Support for OPDs and PPDs Now

NEIGHBORHOOD NEWS  |  April 9, 2013

Alert:  We Need Support for OPDs and PPDs Now

Action needed:  Please send this message to the following officials:

I support the settlement in the OPD lawsuit.  Venice needs overnight restricted parking to address loss of parking on a block-by-block basis where non-resident vehicles are taking up scarce parking at night.  The settlement provides sufficient parking close to the beach for early morning visitors.  I also support the proposal to allow residents to implement preferential parking districts (PPDs) adjacent to commercial corridors where the City and the Coastal Commission have allowed the expansion of new retail shops and restaurants without the provision of adequate off-street parking for patrons. 

Officials’ Email Addresses:

City of Los Angeles: <billrosendahl@aol.com>, <mike.bonin@lacity.org>, <Arturo.Pina@lacity.org>, <Paul.Backstrom@lacity.org>, <paola.valdivia@lacity.org>, <tamara.martin@lacity.org>, <felix.valde@lacity.org>

Neighborhood Council: <Board@VeniceNC.org>

Coastal Commission:  <clester@coastal.ca.gov>, <jainsworth@coastal.ca.gov>, <cposner@coastal.ca.gov>, Mary Shallenberger c/o venessa.miller@coastal.ca.gov, 

Steve Kinsey <skinsey@marincounty.org>, Dayna Bochco c/o <ann@ceresfm.com>

(This alert is also posted at www.venicestakeholdersassocation.org for your convenience.  You can just cut and paste the message and addresses.)

Background:  As mentioned in our earlier notice, the VSA and the City have reached a tentative settlement with the California Coastal Commission staff that will give Venice residents the opportunity to implement overnight restricted parking (OPDs) on their streets.  Now the Commission must formally approve the settlement.

To recap, this means that if residents on your block petition by a two-thirds majority, the City will post signage that will limit parking from 2 AM to 5 AM to residents and their guests who have a permit.  Annual permits are $15, temporary four month permits for visitors are $10, and nightly permits (for parties, etc.) are $1.  (See links below for more information).

With the “No Oversize Vehicle” signage, we have found that those with campers and RVs will not park in a street space in the early evening if they cannot spend the entire night in that space.  We expect the OPD signs will work the same way, encouraging those who are non-residents to seek out other parking in the early evening instead of parking in front of our homes at night.

The settlement basically assures the Coastal Commission that hundreds of empty parking spaces near the beach will continue to be available to early morning visitors by exempting from OPD eligibility certain metered spaces and street spaces in front of government and commercial uses within two blocks of the beach.  Under the settlement, the City also agrees to open up several City owned parking lots (excluding the lot at Main and Rose) for early morning visitors, again freeing up hundreds of spaces (which we believe will rarely be used due to lack of demand at 5 AM, but this was the “price” of the settlement).

The City’s Department of Transportation (DOT) has also stated that at the same time the OPD settlement goes before the Commission (set for early June), DOT will present a request for “Approval in Concept” of a preferential permit parking (PPD) plan to allow residents within 1,500 feet of a commercial corridor (e.g., Rose Avenue, Abbot Kinney) to set up preferential parking districts that would limit visitor parking during the day to two or four hours between 8 AM and 6 PM and limit parking after  6 PM to residents only.  This option is desperately needed due to the tremendous success of these business corridors and the City and Coastal Commission’s failure to require adequate on-site parking at new retail shops and restaurants.

Why we need your help right now:  First, the DOT engineer who championed the OPD settlement and the preferential parking proposal for Venice has retired and it appears that DOT has not assigned another engineer to flesh out the PPD proposal.  Our requests for a written copy of the proposal have gone without reply.  Now, with Venice’s parking issues going to the Coastal Commission, it is the time for the PPD concept to be put before them as well.  Second, two leading anti-OPD advocates, Linda Lucks and David Ewing, are already orchestrating a campaign to defeat both proposals.

The ironies in their opposition are striking.  While Linda Lucks is the president of the Venice Neighborhood Council (VNC), she lives in the Del Rey neighborhood and thus will not be affected by either OPDs or PPDs.  While the official position of the VNC is support of OPDs following the 59% vote of the residents in favor in 2009, Lucks has been organizing yet another “Town Hall” on OPDs to give anti-OPD forces another forum to try to reverse the VNC’s position.  She also has a conflict of interest, which the VSA has noted in a complaint with the Fair Political Practices Commission and the City Ethics Commission; she is a paid consultant to the Venice Community Housing Corporation, which is a vigorous opponent of OPDs. And, instead of supporting PPDs, she has called them a “red herring.”

Lucks’ partner in this effort, David Ewing, also lives outside the portion of Venice that would benefit from OPDs and PPDs.  He lives east of Lincoln, just down the street from an area of Venice that already has OPDs, in part because it is not under Coastal Commission jurisdiction.  But he wants to deny those in the part of Venice west of Lincoln the right he and his neighbors enjoy to reserve parking at night for residents and their guests.

Lucks, Ewing and their colleagues make the spurious claim that somehow visitor access to the coast will be hampered by OPDs and PPDs.  The Coastal Commission assured in the settlement terms that there will be ample parking in the early morning for years to come for the handful of fishers, joggers and surfers who arrive at 5 AM.  And PPDs would only affect commercial corridors that are at considerable distance from the coast and are not an attractive parking location for visitors for that reason.

To finally get some relief for residents to address the historic parking shortage in Venice, please send the message above to the officials listed.

And please send this request to all your Venice friends and neighbors today and ask them to send the pro-OPD/PPD message out as soon as possible.

If you have any questions, please call me at (310) 392-4843.  Many thanks for your support.         

Mark Ryavec

President, Venice Stakeholders Association

P.S. Your financial support for the VSA is also needed. This has been a long and expensive legal battle and legal bills remain. I would greatly appreciate if you would make a tax-deductible contribution to the VSA of $200 or more to help us defray these costs. Contributions can be made by PayPal through our website (venicestakeholdersassociation.org) or sent to 453 Rialto Avenue, Venice, CA  90291.

Links for info on OPD permits

http://www.lacity-parking.org/laopm/annual_overnight_permit.html
http://www.lacity-parking.org/laopm/visitor_overnight_permit.html
http://www.lacity-parking.org/laopm/guest_overnight_permit.html

Complaint Filed for Investigation of Ethics Violation by VNC President

Venice Stakeholders Calls for

Investigation of Ethics Violation by

Linda Lucks, President, Venice Neighborhood Council

The Venice Stakeholders Association (VSA) today filed a request for an investigation of an ethics violation by Linda Lucks, the president of the Venice Neighborhood Council (VNC).  The request was filed with both the State Fair Political Practices Commission and the City of Los Angeles’ Ethics Commission.

The VSA’s attorney, John Henning, called for the investigation because Ms. Lucks has failed to respond to calls for her to recuse herself from involvement with deliberations concerning overnight restricted permit parking (OPDs) in Venice, which her client, the Venice Community Housing Corporation (VCHC), has long opposed.

“Ms. Lucks’ involvement in the OPDs issue is in direct conflict with her economic interest in her paid position as Capital Campaign Coordinator at VCHC,” Henning wrote.  “On the one hand she is orchestrating a campaign to reverse the VNC's position on OPDs, and to influence the City Council to effectively abandon its own resolutions establishing OPDs, while on the other hand she is in the employ of one of the foremost opponents of OPDs.”

Citing the Los Angeles City Charter, an executive directive by Mayor Villaraigosa, and advice by the City Attorney, Henning noted that just the appearance of a conflict is enough to require a city official to withdraw from any involvement in a matter. 

Mark Ryavec, president of the VSA, said that he had emailed the full Board of the VNC some weeks ago about Lucks’ conflict of interest and had not received a reply, so the VSA felt the issue should be raised with State and City officials. 

“The residents of Venice deserve a neighborhood council free from both actual and perceived conflicts of interest so they can trust that the recommendations of the council are determined on the merits and do not reflect the wishes of narrow special interests,” Ryavec said.

For a copy of the complaint send a request to venicestakeholders@ca.rr.com.

Overnight Restricted Parking Gains in Venice

Settlement Reached in OPD Lawsuit

We are encouraged to report that last week the California Coastal Commission tentatively approved a settlement of the VSA lawsuit, which will give Venice residents the opportunity to implement overnight restricted parking (OPDs) on their streets.

As you may remember, following the Commission’s denial of OPDs, the VSA filed a lawsuit against the Commission and the City of Los Angeles arguing that no Coastal Development Permit was required for OPD signs. Eventually, City Attorney Carmen Trutanich agreed with us and the City joined our lawsuit against the Commission. 

An earlier, tentative settlement went to the Commission about a year and half ago, but it was rejected by extremists on the Commission. In the intervening time the Commission membership has dramatically changed; “No Oversize Vehicle” signage was installed on over 100 blocks in Venice; the LAPD started to aggressively enforce the ban on sleeping in vehicles (LAMC 85.02); and Councilman Rosendahl’s Streets to Homes program was implemented, which moved over 150 people, many living in vehicles, to services and housing. 

RVs on Harding Avenue in Presidents Row 2-14-13

However, non-resident vehicles continue to occupy very limited street parking spaces in several Venice neighborhoods. In some instances, vehicle dwellers have simply moved to vans, small trucks, and SUVs, which are not subject to the restriction on oversize vehicles; this is particularly acute during the summer months. Tourists staying in boardwalk-adjacent hotels still park their rental cars overnight in residential neighborhoods. Some boardwalk vendors are now using vans as storage units for their products and parking them 24/7 on streets such as Westminster and Brooks. In other areas, auto garages and car rental companies are storing vehicles overnight on residential streets. And the larger campers and RVs keep testing the limits, taking up residence in Oakwood, on Rose Avenue, on Venice Blvd., or in the Presidents Row area until the LAPD can get around to enforcing the OVO (Oversize Vehicle Ordinance) signs or LAMC 85.02.

The VSA and its attorney John Henning have put in considerable time and effort over the last year to arrive at a settlement that will allow Venetians to install overnight restricted permit parking on their blocks from 2:00 to 5:00 a.m., providing that the individual block has demonstrated via petitions a two-thirds majority among residents in favor of the action. This solution stems from experience with the OVO signs showing that if people intent on parking overnight cannot park during those hours, they won’t park there at all.

The process of arriving at this settlement entailed cajoling the City to devote the time and staff to reach a new settlement. We also had to fight off an ill-conceived proposal from the Department of Transportation that would have given OPDs to 990 blocks in Venice while requiring 10 blocks in the Windward Traffic Circle area to convert existing parallel parking to diagonal parking and forever give up the right to have OPDs on those blocks. The VSA worked with residents to defeat that concept and instead developed a proposal to exempt from OPDs metered parking spaces and spaces fronting on government uses and commercial buildings near the beach. This assures the Coastal Commission that there will be adequate early morning street parking near the beach for fishers, surfers, and joggers before the county lots open at 6:00 a.m.

We have also heard from the DOT that it will be submitting a proposal to the Commission for an approval-in-concept for a preferential permit parking plan for commercial corridors (e.g., Abbot Kinney and Rose Avenue) that would allow residents within 1500 feet of major commercial streets to apply for 24-hour permit parking that would limit non-resident parking to a few hours, while residents with a City permit could park there with no restrictions. The VSA proposed this concept several months ago to City officials and we are pleased to see that DOT is pursuing this plan with Commission staff.

The Commission is likely to hold a hearing on the OPD Coastal Development Permit, which includes the elements of the settlement; on :

June 12, 13 or 14
at the Long Beach City Council Chambers
333 W. Ocean Boulevard, Long Beach

We will keep you posted on the hearing date and where you can send letters and emails supporting OPDs (and the Commercial Corridor Preferential Permit Plan).

In light of these developments, your financial support for the VSA would be greatly appreciated. This has been a long and expensive legal battle and legal bills remain from the last few months. We would greatly appreciate if you would make a tax-deductible contribution to the VSA of $200 or more to help us defray these costs. Contributions can be made by PayPal or sent to 453 Rialto Avenue, Venice, CA  90291.

Many thanks for all of your support!             

VSA Calls for Unpermitted Railroad Container to be Removed from Beach

The Venice Stakeholders Association has filed a letter with City and Coastal Commission officials asking that the City adhere to State laws, which require a Coastal Development Permit and environmental review for any development in the coastal zone, especially a sizable structure which blocks public views of the beach and ocean such as the railroad transport container recently installed at Windward Plaza.

The letter, directed to City Recreation and Parks Commission president Barry A. Sanders and general manager Jon Kirk Mukri, notes that the container “constitutes ‘development’ within the Coastal Zone and thus requires the issuance of a Coastal Development Permit by both the City and the California Coastal Commission. In addition, the installation requires the preparation of an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).”

“The City must abide by the same rules that apply to private property owners,” said Mark Ryavec, VSA president.  “No Boardwalk property owner could plop down a huge storage container on a parking lot and then start using it to store the possessions of up to 80 people on a daily basis without the proper permits. 

“That it is an industrial use in a park environment makes it all the more objectionable.”

The letter demands that the container be removed immediately, because it is an unpermitted use, and indicates the Stakeholders will consider applying for an injunction if it is not removed.

Stop the Boardwalk storage program

Alert

Dear VSA Supporters,

 

Please send an email to Councilman Bill Rosendahl and the Venice Neighborhood Council regarding the Homeless Beach Locker Enablement Program as soon as possible.

 

The intention of homeless advocates - Linda Lucks, Steve Clare, David Ewing, etc. - is to assist the hundreds of transients living along the Boardwalk, in the park and on the walk streets to continue to occupy these public spaces. These advocates estimate that 80 campers can store their stuff in this container on any given day.  

 

Such facilities are counter productive unless they are provided in the context of transitional housing and services such as job training, drug rehab and mental health counseling. 

 

Other cities with successful homeless serving programs, such as Santa Monica, avoid such stand-alone "locker" and storage facilities because they have proved to just make it easier for the campers to stay on the street and in the parks and do not draw them into counseling and housing.

 

Lucks, et al, hope to put the program into place without public comment or support!!!
 

Send your comments to <Billrosendahl@aol.com>,  <cecilia.castillo@lacity.org>, <Board@VeniceNC.org> to stop the Boardwalk storage program.

 

PLEASE WRITE NOW!!  The Venice Neighborhood Council will hear this matter on January 22nd.

 

Just send a simple message:  No Storage lockers on the beachfront please...

 

Please also attend the VNC Board meeting Tuesday evening at 7 PM at Westminster School to oppose the storage locker program.

 

Thanks for helping us make Venice a safer and cleaner place to live.

 

Mark Ryavec

President

Venice Stakeholders Association Calls for Stronger Municipal Storm Water Runoff Permit Requirements

The Venice Stakeholders Association (VSA) has called for stricter requirements in the revised municipal storm water run-off permit now under consideration by the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board.

VSA president Mark Ryavec testified before the Board, noting that, “It has been 22 years since the first discharge permit was established to eliminate contaminants from entering coastal waters yet in wet seasons the beaches are still awash in a toxic soup.”

Ryavec points out source of winter season "toxic soup"

“While progress has been made in the dry season, we still have beaches with “C” grades near Temescal Canyon in the Palisades and Mothers Beach in Marina del Rey, and failing grades in the winter months all along LA’s coast,” Ryavec said.  “We really need to do more to clean-up this precious resource.”

“I’m speaking to the “retail” aspect of the Board’s consideration of the permit’s conditions,” Ryavec said.  “Venice residents rely on clean, safe beach waters every day for swimming, wading and surfing, yet there are many periods in the winter months when it remains dangerous to one’s health to enter the water.”

“Venice Beach attracts 16 million visitors a year and many of those visitors pump millions of dollars into the many businesses and hotels in our community,” Ryavec said. “Yet these visitors, both foreign and domestic, come year-round and many tell us they worry about the safety of going into the surf.  In the wet season, their concerns are not easily dismissed.”

The VSA joined Heal the Bay, Los Angeles Waterkeeper and Natural Resources Defense Counsel in asking for stricter water quality standards, early setting of the maximum allowed levels of various chemicals and pollutants in storm water, containment of more storm water by new “Low Impact Development” standards for new construction, and more aggressive water quality monitoring.

VSA Endorses Bicyclists Safe Passing Bill - SB 1464

 

                                                              

Governor Edmund G. Brown

State Capitol

Sacramento, CA  95814

Re:  SB 1464 to Safeguard Cyclists

Dear Governor Brown,

I'm writing on behalf of the Venice community and cyclists throughout California to urge you to sign Senate Bill 1464 so that drivers must give at least three feet of clearance when overtaking a person on a bicycle.

When a passing driver fails to give a bicyclist enough space, the slightest error by the driver or the most minor shift by the bicyclist to avoid trash, broken glass, a car door opening or rough pavement can lead to a collision. This type of collision is the leading cause of adult bicyclist fatalities in California and the U.S.

By requiring drivers to give bicyclists more space when passing, we can minimize a leading cause of deadly collisions and help more people feel comfortable about choosing to ride their bikes. And by making it possible for more people to feel confident about choosing to ride a bicycle, we can encourage more Californians to bike routinely and begin to achieve some of the state's crucial goals for less gas consumption and improved air quality.

Specifying a minimum passing distance provides a more objective and easily understood measure of what constitutes "safe" and gives law enforcement and the courts a more objective basis for enforcing a safe passing requirement. Most importantly, it helps emphasize a driver's responsibility to safeguard more vulnerable road users like bicyclists. It will save lives without imposing any costs on government.

Please sign SB 1464 into law.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely yours,
Mark Ryavec

Mark Ryavec, President