Monday, June 17, 2013

Coastal Commission Ignores Its Staff's Recommendation and Settlement Agreement; Nixes OPDs.



In a sign of bad faith, the Coastal Commission at its hearing on Thursday, June 13th, refused to allow several pro-OPD speakers to make their remarks, ignored steadfast support for OPDs from its own staff, and added late requirements, which were impossible for City representatives to meet during the hearing.  This included a late demand for an up-dated parking availability study.  

If the Commission had been operating in good faith, the Commission would have requested the study before it agreed to the settlement.  In the end, the Commission gave into representatives of social service agencies, the Peace and Freedom party, Occupy Venice and homeless advocates.

The prospects for OPD were hampered going into the hearing by several developments.

The first was that the City of Los Angeles, including City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, more or less abandoned defense of its own permit application.  Some of this was just unlucky circumstances, some of this was bad faith by city officials, including Rosendahl.

Over the last three years the City lost two knowledgeable Transportation Department officials, Alan Willis and Yadi Hashemi, to early retirement.  Their replacement was at a lower experience level and was not able to forcefully present the permit application to the Commission.

Next, there was a pissing match between Bill Rosendahl and City Attorney Trutanich over who was going to present the City application to the Commission.  Bill expected the City Attorney's Office to take the lead, since it was a settlement of the City's (and VSA's) lawsuit against the Commission, while Trutanich, miffed that Rosendahl had supported Mike Feuer in the City Attorney's race, refused.  So, Bill deputized his staff attorney, Norm Kulla, to make the presentation.  We offered to brief Kulla, but he said he knew everything he needed to know.  However, in front of the Commission, he asked for little time to make the City's presentation, told the Commission that Bill supported OPD on the grounds of equity, and then pitched the presentation to our attorney John Henning, underscoring the City's lukewarm support for OPD.  John Henning did his best, but because Norm asked for so little time, neither John nor I could finish our presentations.

The fact is that Bill R. took a dive, too.  While maintaining that he strongly supported OPD, he made no effort to either change his medical appointments on the hearing date so he could attend in person or to ask the Commission staff to move the hearing back one day so he could attend.

Trutanich sent an attorney to the hearing, Jerry Sato, but not the right attorney.  He sent the litigator in his office who would prosecute the case against the Commission instead of the attorney who has worked on the issue for the last four years, Valerie Flores.  And he did not allow Sato make any remarks in support of the settlement or to answer questions.

In short, the City completely abandoned the residents who have shown majority support for OPD since the 59% vote at the library in 2009.

One also has to acknowledge that OPD opponents did their best organizing effort ever and generally avoided the shrill and venomous presentation of previous years.  And our side, well, too many of our adherents were no shows.  Too many OPD supporters gave a priority to work and child care commitments and failed to attend.

There were only 80 anti-OPD speakers, but in contrast, our side only fielded about 10 speakers in support.  Our presence was also unfairly limited by an unpublished Commission rule that once the hearing starts no more speaker cards are accepted.  We had been informed that it was unlikely that the OPD item would be heard before 10:30, but the hearing got started about 9:30, so some of our key supporters, including Harris Levey, president of the Presidents Row Neighborhood Association, and Reta Moser, a well known activist and publisher of the Triangle Update, were not allowed to speak. There were several others in this category, including Marie Hammond of the Rose Avenue Working Group.

I could go into the specious nature of the concerns that appeared to drive Commissioners "no" vote, but more important to this analysis is that the Commission's procedures do not allow anyone other than the City’s representatives to answer any concerns or questions posed by commissioners after the public comment period is closed.  So, while I or John Henning could have answered their concerns, we were precluded from answering and the City reps either didn't care or were not prepared to answer (again, City staff simply stood silent).

Of course, if the commission was comprised of professional men and women of integrity they would have read the settlement terms in advance of agreeing to it and raised their questions in a timely manner before they even agreed to the settlement.  Springing a request for a new study of early morning parking availability at the end of the hearing was, of course, unfair to the residents and the City.  But this has been the Commission's behavior all along, to keep setting the hurdle higher after the City has already met the Commission staff's expectations for adequate parking mitigation for early morning beach access and a settlement has been reached.  It's called "re-negotiating a done deal," and reflects a lack of professionalism and integrity, but the Commission is largely composed of small town council members who are not really “ready for prime time."  Usually they recognize this and support recommendations of staff, but in this case they allowed themselves to be influenced by "the mob" and ignored the well-substantiated recommendations from their own staff.

So, where to now?  Clearly, there is no reason to discuss settlement with the Commission again.  It has shown itself to be an untrustworthy negotiating partner.  The only avenue is to litigate the underlying lawsuit.  This is dependent on funding.  If enough Venice residents are outraged at being treated by the Commission as second class citizens, undeserving of the same rights to control their streets at night that the Commission allows most other coastal cities, and provide the donations, then the VSA will litigate this matter.

I'd like to thank everyone who contributed dollars, letters, emails, postcards, etc., to our effort.

Mark Ryavec

Saturday, June 8, 2013

PLEASE ATTEND THE COASTAL COMMISSION HEARING TO SUPPORT THE RIGHT OF VENICE RESIDENTS TO IMPLEMENT OVERNIGHT RESTRICTED PARKING ON THEIR BLOCK!



The City’s application for a Coastal Development Permit for Venice OPDs will be before the California Coastal Commission on Thursday, June 13, at 8:30 AM at the Long Beach City Council chambers.  This action will settle the lawsuit the VSA brought against the Commission for its earlier denial of an OPD for Venice.

Even if your street does not currently have a problem with non-resident cars taking up parking, we ask that you support your neighbors in other areas of Venice who continue to face a lack of parking at night.  OPD will allow residents to park closer to their homes and supports public safety.

PLEASE DO THE FOLLOWING:

1.       Speak in favor of OPD at the Commission’s hearing on Thursday, June 13, at 8:30 AM at the Long Beach City Council chambers at 333 West Ocean Boulevard. 

2.       Email this message to Jack Ainsworth at jainsworth@coastal.ca.gov

“I am a Venice resident and I support Overnight Restricted Parking (OPD) for Venice.”

3.   Go to www.venicenc.org and vote for OPD.

4.       Write a letter to the Commission explaining the parking issues on your block that overnight restricted parking would address:

Members of the California Coastal Commission
200 Oceangate, 10th Floor
Long Beach, CA 90802-4416
         
 Background:

The Venice Stakeholders Assn. and the City have reached a settlement with the California Coastal Commission staff that will allow Venice residents to implement overnight restricted parking (OPD) on their streets. Commission staff is recommending approval of the settlement and a revised Coastal Development Permit.  The Coastal Commission must formally approve the settlement at their June meeting on the 13th.

How OPDs work: 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 late night parties, etc.) are $1. 

With the “No Oversize Vehicle” signage, we found that those in campers and RVs won’t park in a street space in the early evening if they cannot spend the entire night in that space. We expect the OPD signs to work the same way, encouraging non-residents to seek out other parking in the early evening instead of parking in front of our homes at night (which is also a noise problem when non-residents leave bars/restaurants late at night).

The settlement in the OPD lawsuit 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/commercial uses within three blocks of the beach. Under the settlement, the City also agrees to accelerate the installation of bike lanes and to open six City-owned parking lots for early morning visitors, freeing up hundreds of spaces for visitors.

If you have any questions, please call Venice Stakeholders Association at (310) 392 4843 or email venicestakeholders@ca.rr.com.
Please make a donation to the VSA at venicestakeholdersassociation.org to help cover the legal costs of the litigation and negotiating the settlement.