Kathryn Morea’s letter to the editor (SMDP, Oct. 13, page 4) about how the city discriminates against residents when granting preferential parking permits is right on target.
Morea lives on Ninth Street — the only street in the area that doesn’t have full permit parking. Despite three years of petitioning by her and neighbors for a change, the city has done nothing.
Ninth Street between Michigan Avenue and Pico Boulevard is comprised mostly of hundreds of apartments and condos. There is not nearly enough parking to accommodate resident demand. Only 23 spaces on the west side of the street are permitted for part-time resident parking.
It seems the city thinks it’s a good idea to leave the other 62 diagonal spaces on the east side unrestricted for use by Santa Monica High School students, business and visitors — even though the vast majority of the city’s other preferential zones are completely restricted and do not address “non-resident” parking.
For some reason the city has dug in its heels. Although the street meets the criteria for permit parking on both sides, numerous requests to rectify the situation on Ninth Street have been stonewalled.
But it’s not unusual for the city to ignore citizen complaints. A prime example is the homeless issue.
The city has turned a deaf ear to complaints. Eager to provide more homeless services while ignoring resident quality of life issues, the city carries on as if nothing is wrong. Their stock answer to citizen complaints: “You’ll learn to like it.”
Take speed bumps on many residential streets in Sunset Park between Pico and Ocean Park boulevards, for example. When they were installed years ago, they were either too high or sloped wrong. Vehicles bottomed out driving over them even when going slow.
Many of the bumps were removed and rebuilt, but they’re still not right The police and fire departments claim that they continue to slow emergency vehicles enough to make them lose a minute or more of time driving the two blocks.
Paramedics stationed at fire station No. 5, south of Ocean Park Boulevard, respond to emergency calls from the neighborhood north of Pico Boulevard. The loss of a minute of time on an emergency run could result in death for someone in dire need of help.
Speed bumps in Los Angeles are much less bone jarring and teeth rattling than bumps here in Santa Monica. So a private engineer a couple of years ago surveyed the Sunset Park bumps and determined that the vast majority of them were still not to proper specification.
The problem has still not been fixed, in spite of the possibility of a loss of life. The speed bumps are yet another monument to the city’s stubbornness, arrogance and stupidity.
Next Thursday, the Rent Control Board meets to decide whether to allow landlords to pass along to their tenants the cost of Measure S, the $225 annual school property tax increase approved by voters in June — as they have done with other tax and bond costs in the past.
You can bet a month’s rent that “S” costs will be passed on by the RCB, which is composed entirely of Santa Monicans for Renter’s Rights politicos. They’re going to do landlords a big favor by making renters pay for yet another SMRR-supported tax.
Last June, RCB chair Betty Mueller was quoted in “Yes on S” election mailers: “It will only cost the average renter less than $3 per month.” This raises a question as to whether the RCB had met behind closed doors — and illegally — five months ago to discuss and approve a course of action on an item that was agen-dized just two weeks ago.
SMRR heavily backed the parcel tax increase and, according to landlords I talked to at the time (and disclosed in my June 20 column), the word was the RCB would allow a pass along if they supported the school measure.
Some landlords already have notified tenants of a rent increase effective Jan. 1, 2004.
It looks as if SMRR will make good on their pre-election deal and “officially” pay back a political favor while us renters, who SMRR claims to speak for, will once again take it in the shorts.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 17, 2003. Read the original PDF.