By John Kreiss Santa Monica
Smokers in public parks and the cigarette butts they leave behind may indeed be a health hazard for our children. The City Council’s move to ban them will be seen by many as important.
The murder in the Palisades reported in the Daily Press should alert our Council to an even greater health, safety and environmental hazard obvious to anyone who uses the walkways from Palisades Park to the beach. There has now been a murder and probable sexual assault in an area adjacent to the city’s most beautiful park that has become a “no man’s land” largely ignored by all agencies of government. Because there are overlapping layers of responsibility for the problems to be found there (social agencies, parks maintenance, police, and yes, even the Coastal Commission) no one seems to effectively deal (or want to deal) with this situation.
It has not been a kindness to the homeless to permit these conditions to continue. The homeless should be able to use our public parks but they should not be allowed to camp in them — most particularly on the dangerous and environmentally sensitive slopes of the Palisades. The Council should direct the police department to adopt a zero tolerance for any persons climbing on those steep slopes despite the fact that enforcement will be both difficult and unpleasant. (Note the difficulty of removing the murder victim from the slope.) In order to accommodate the fact that there is an ever-changing transient population, the police will have to make this as regular an assignment as parking enforcement is in Santa Monica. As we now have found out... people’s lives depend on it... and the Council can actually do something about this long term problem too long ignored. It is already too late for one unfortunate woman.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 18, 2003. Read the original PDF.