Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Alleged Dirty Tricks by Mayoral Staffer

The Venice Stakeholders Association today sent a letter to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa calling for an investigation into claims on the website Yo!Venice! that the Mayor’s Associate Director of Transportation, Jim Bickhart, has repeatedly posted hostile and hateful comments on the website under a pseudonym in an effort to discredit Venice Stakeholders and those who support overnight restricted parking in Venice.

“By attributing these highly negative sentiments concerning those who live in vehicles to “the Stakeholders” these posts are a calculated attempt to paint us – and all of our supporters - as hateful and callous,” said Mark Ryavec, president of the VSA. Ryavec noted that he earlier co-chaired a community committee that recommended a “Vehicle to Housing” transition program to relocate vehicle dwellers to remote parking lots and to provide them services.

“Our group has never engaged in the type of hostile name calling that it appears Mr. Bickhart has attributed to us,” Ryavec said.

“This is an ugly escalation in the community debate on this issue,” Ryavec said, “and is inappropriate for any public official.”

The editor of Yo!Venice! has called on-line for Bickhart to claim or deny he indeed is the author of the posts. There has been no reply from Bickhart.

The VSA letter concludes:

“If these posts were indeed made by Mr. Bickhart, we question his suitability for a position of public trust. If he wrote it and believes what he wrote, in our opinion he does not belong in public service. If, on the other hand, he wrote it but does not believe what he wrote, and propagated these remarks to discredit our group (and Yo!Venice! and others who support overnight restricted parking), then his behavior amounts to a political dirty trick, which is intolerable in a public official.”

Attachment: Letter to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa

Friday, November 19, 2010

Oversize Vehicle Ordinance Advances

Residents on Over 60 Blocks Sign-Up for the 2 AM to 6 AM Parking Restrictions


View Larger Map

On Wednesday, November 17th, the Los Angeles City Council approved an ordinance to implement in Venice the City’s new Oversize Vehicle restrictions.

The ordinance allows residents to petition to erect signs on their block to ban vehicles over 22 feet long or 7 feet tall from the hours of 2 AM to 6 AM in the areas of Venice west of Lincoln Boulevard.

The VSA also announced that residents of over 60 blocks have turned in petitions, which have been approved by the council office. The petitions have been sent to the Department of Transportation for installation of the signs, pending the Mayor’s approval of the implementing ordinance. The street segments covered by the petitions are the most impacted areas in the Venice community. (See map above)

“We are pleased to finally see some progress on the implementation of this ordinance. It should free up parking for residents and remove these vehicles, which have a long history of dumping trash and human waste on our streets and into the storm drains,” said Mark Ryavec, the president of the VSA.

Ryavec noted that Venice Stakeholders asked over a year ago for the City to amend the language of the Oversize Vehicle Ordinance to change the word “and” to “or” so that it would capture large vehicles that are either over 22 feet long or over 7 feet tall.

Ryavec said that the new signs will only deal with part of the problem residents face with the over 250 vehicles used as living quarters in Venice. “Some of the vehicles are less than 7 feet tall, so they will be exempt. Also, the City Attorney has tentatively decided that those vehicles with handicapped placards or license plates may be exempt from the ordinance, so they are advising the LAPD not to cite them for the time being.”

“We still need to pursue our lawsuit against the Coastal Commission to win the right for overnight restricted parking for residents and we will need the LAPD to aggressively enforce the ban (LAMC 85.02) on using vehicles as living quarters,” Ryavec said.

The map above shows the status of Over-height Vehicle Overnight (OVO) parking restrictions petitions that we are aware. Completed street segments accepted by the council office are listed in red.

If you would like to know about a particular street segment send us a comment using the comment box on the lower right of this web page. We will try to hook people up who are interested in gathering petitions on a particular street segment. If you submitted your petition and do not see your street marked on our map, also please let us know.

NOTE: some segments may only cover one side of a street segment.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Finding Residences for a Street Segment



I've attached a picture with instructions for obtaining the legal address and number of units at properties along a street segment. This can help you know in advance the total count of residences for a street segment with some certainty. The county assessors web site is: http://maps.assessor.lacounty.gov/

Just download a blank OVO petition and you can get started collecting signatures. Please make a photo copy of your petition before submitting it to the city. You can also email us if you have questions about whether anyone else is gathering signatures for a given street.

Friday, October 22, 2010

Applause for City Attorney Carmen Trutanich for Defending Venice's Beach Curfew


Our City Attorney, Carmen Trutanich, has once again come to the aid of his Venice constituents.

As you will see from the attached letter from Trutanich's Office to the Coastal Commission, Trutanich has rejected the attempt by the Commission's staff to force the City Department of Recreation and Parks to apply for a Coastal Development Permit to continue the City's beach curfew in Venice, which would surely be rejected by the Commission.

The curfew was established at the request of the LAPD and local residents more than three decades ago. The curfew is a lawful exercise of the City's inherent police powers, in this instance to prevent and abate criminal and life-threatening behavior at nighttime along Venice Beach.

The City Attorney also suggests that the current investigation of the beach curfew has been instigated by the Commission in retaliation for the City's decision to join the VSA's lawsuit against the Commission for its rejection of overnight restricted parking for residents. The VSA agrees that this is the probable motivation for the Commission's "mission creep" into an area that is traditionally the prerogative of municipal government.

I would encourage you to send an email of support to Mr. Trutanich at ctrutanich@lacity.org, with a copy to his chief deputy, Jane Usher, at Jane.Usher@lacity.org, thanking him for rejecting the Commission's attempt to take jurisdiction for public safety along the beach away from the City and LAPD, which would invite more transients sleeping on the beach and more criminal activity.

Click Here to read the letter.




Prosecution of Culprits in Pacific/Fleet Sewage Dumping Incident


The City Attorney's Office has just provided us with this formal report on the result of the prosecution of the couple that was involved in the sewage dumping incident at Pacific and Fleet on the Venice Peninsula:

Both defendants were arrested on their warrants on Tuesday October 12, 2010. They appeared in court on Wednesday October 13, 2010 for arraignment. The defendants were charged with three counts each (Penal Code 370/372, LAMC 62.80(a), and Penal Code 182(a)(1)). Both defendants pled "Open to the Court" to the following sentence: 36 months of summary probation, Time Served in County Jail, 120 days of county jail suspended (which means that if the defendants violate the terms of their probation the Court will automatically impose 120 days of county jail each), restitution and a stay away (Imperial to the South, Navy to the North, Sepulveda to the East and the Pacific Ocean to the West). We will be having a restitution hearing on November 16, 2010 (to recover the costs of the clean up).
Pleading "open to the Court" means that the Court determines the sentence (after hearing from both our Office and the defense). When pleading "open to the Court" the defendants must plead Guilty or No Contest to ALL charges (in this case there were three charges filed against each defendant).

(This is from Claudia Martin, the Neighborhood Prosecutor assigned to Venice.)

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Rosendahl Calls Town Hall Meeting on Homeless Issues

Councilman Bill Rosendahl's office has announced a Town Hall Meeting on Homeless Issues. We need all Venice stakeholders who care about this issue to please take time to attend this meeting and show express your support for enforcing existing laws and for finding solutions to the real quality of life issues that result from the current homeless situation in Venice.

Rosendahl's press release is as follows:



Public Invited to Discussion on Enforcement Strategies and Social Services
LOS ANGELES – Councilman Bill Rosendahl is holding a Town Hall forum September 23rd to discuss homeless issues in the 11th Council District. The event will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. at Westminster Elementary School in Venice.

The session will include a series of presentations on ongoing and new efforts to prevent people from living on the streets or in their vehicles. Those efforts include law enforcement strategies, parking enforcement and the “Streets to Homes” program.

Rosendahl will moderate the session, which will include questions from the audience to officials from the Los Angeles Police Department, the Office of the Los Angeles City Attorney, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation and the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which will manage the “Streets to Homes” program. The program will provide safe parking places and case management to eligible vehicle dwellers.

WHO

Councilman Bill Rosendahl, 11th District

Los Angeles Police Department representatives
Los Angeles City Attorney representatives
Los Angeles Department of Transportation representatives
Michael Arnold, Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority

WHAT
Town Hall Meeting to Discuss Homeless Issue

WHEN
September 23, 2010
7:00 P.M.-9:00 P.M.

WHERE

Westminster Elementary School
1010 Abbot Kinney Blvd
Venice, CA 90291-3312

For more information, contact Arturo Pina by email at arturo.pina@lacity.org or call (310) 568-8772

Monday, September 6, 2010

Implementation in Venice of the “No Oversize Vehicle” Ordinance

Dear Mayor Villaraigosa, dear Councilman Rosendahl,

Starting last week, thousands of Venice residents began circulating and/or signing petitions to implement the new “No Oversize Vehicle” ordinance on their blocks to remove at night RVS and campers, which have been documented dumping and/or leaking sewage on our streets.

I am writing to address several questions about the process for authorizing the signs once the petitions have been submitted.

The City Attorney’s Office has advised us that under the petition process set out in the ordinance, no “implementing ordinance” is required, and that the City Council has the authority to unilaterally authorize the signage for six block areas by Council resolution. Nonetheless, Councilman Rosendahl claims that an “implementing ordinance” is required to install the signs. Any new ordinance is subject to the Mayor’s veto; the Council’s override of a veto is not a foregone conclusion. Thus, we would ask:

Mayor Villaraigosa, will you indeed sign the ordinance?

And, Mr. Rosendahl, have you spoken directly to Mr. Villaraigosa and secured his promise to sign the ordinance?

Finally, Mr. Rosendahl, if the Mayor, who has previously expressed his antipathy to the new Oversize Vehicle Ordinance by refusing to sign it, is not willing to sign your new Venice-specific “implementing ordinance,” why do you not take the City Attorney’s advice and pass several Council resolutions for six block areas that are most burdened by oversize vehicles? We are advised, again by the City Attorney, that this is the quickest means to authorize the signs and this procedure is immune to a Mayoral veto.

I am respectfully yours,


Mark Ryavec, President