Saturday, December 9, 2006

Letter From A Concerned Resident

I am Responding to the front page article in yesterdays Los Angeles Times about Michael Dukakis' campaign to inforce the laws against tandem parking in the North Village in Westwood.

 

I live in a building on Strathmore Drive built in the early 30's which is now a condo and most of us are property owners.  I am a Professor at UCLA and have been working there for the past 19 years.  We have two other professors from UCLA in the building and most other residents are professionals with families.  Not one student lives in the building.  One parking spot was alotted to each unit  and most of us have families with more than one car.  It is necessary for us to tandem park behind our parking garages.  We leave enough space on the sidewalk for the legal requirement and our cars are not sticking out in the street.  Residents in our building have been tandem parking for the last 30 years.  Enforcement of the "apron parking" law would make it impossible for us to live in our building because most other parking in the neighborhood is already taken by UCLA students.  Officials at UCLA and City Officials need to seriously take a look at their lack of action in dealing with this long standing problem of parking at UCLA and in the neighborhood.  Solutions need to be found for long standing residents and property owners in the area- parking permists must be issued and additional parking must be created to address this problem.  Enforcing tandem parking law and punishing everyone with tickets at this time including long residents is not the solution.  Complete responsibility for this enormous problem rests with the Officials at UCLA and the Officials at Los Angeles City Hall.

 

University of California, Los Angeles has been building more buildings, offering more programs,  and attracting more students around the world and staff without dealing with the urgent need for more parking in the area.  It is time to face up to this problem full on- before it becomes a disaster that will explode in student and citizen unrest. 

 

 

Jean-Louis Rodrigue

Professor

UCLA School of Theater, Film, Television and Digital Arts

102 East Melnitz Hall

Box 951622

Los Angeles, CA 90095-1622

310-209-9023

 

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