By Stewart Resmer Santa Monica
The SMDP article “Putting in work,” page 1, May 28, outlines the cities big plans for improvements throughout the greater city and more close to home the borderline area which is located at the south end of the city west of Lincoln.
Some borderline neighbors who have long bemoaned the area for all things any modern city comes to represent, but today in your reporter’s article, she links tow truck operations and illicit activities in the same sentence.
Yes it is true that over the years that a particular household near the former AAA contract station hectored the legitimate operators who served the motoring public in all kinds of weather 24-7, 365 days a year from lock outs to very serious accidents.
The area now boasts of no parking anytime and some who live there seem to delight in confronting anyone who dares exercise their franchise as a tax payer using the public streets to park, but alas city government here seems oblivious to the words long enshrined in the great document that states as “We The People,” which has come to be we the special interests declare ourselves exempt from forming a more perfect union, with the consent of the city to seize parking on the streets mentioned as borderline? Or equal protection under the law when it comes to shared resources, including parking?
In the piece, remarks are made regarding the side streets as looking like alleys. That’s the way the founders of the city laid the streets, and there were no side walks afforded by past owners.
If the boderliners want improvements perhaps they might best afford those improvements on their own, maybe even assess themselves a special tax for their own improvement district.
But I suppose that transcends the borderline collective mentality, as borderliners are more prone to seek land grants that favor them alone at the cost of the rest of us who work hard, play by the rules and pay our taxes?
But honestly, to link tow truck operations manned by blue collar workers, especially AAA, goes beyond mean spirited to down right hostility.
Not satisfied with having destroyed the lively hoods of those employed at the facility and going to no ends to continue the character assassination, it would appear the new guard of SMDP reporters have lost their objectivity by not seeking those who might have a differing perspective of the service once provided but were set upon instead by subsequent new comers intent on destroying the charm and ambiance of Ocean Park itself as it once was, a live and let live community.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 31, 2008. Read the original PDF.