Saturday, November 5, 2011

Potential Next Steps

Hi all (please forward to anybody I missed),

We are in an interesting situation.

Indeed, I was told by a number of students that they believed that Apron Parking had been reinstated.  To illustrate this, some pointed to cars apron parked down the street.  Others said they had been Apron parking and had not been ticketed.  We saw cars apron parked in all directions (one blocking a sidewalk) that had not been ticketed. 

The other side of that is that in puzzling through the confusing messages coming from the Daily Bruin and the motion we received, it leaves us with the following information:

1)  All agree that we can park on the parkway if we don't hang out on the street.  THIS IS CRUCIAL because it means that the ADA suit is irrelevant to Apron Parking. Terrie has parked on the parkway for a week now in a loaner van while her car is being repaired. 

2)  We know that there is a moratorium on some forms of Apron Parking -- maybe all forms.  The evidence is mixed.  (No student reported having been ticketed, but there were vague reports of ticketing around the neighborhood.  If we're going to take this seriously, it would be good to have names and dates).

3)  I do not believe we have received any definitive information to the emails we have sent to Koretz, though he seems to have been doing a victory dance.

Lets say that we all agree on the following:
a)  We're all sick of this and frankly, are losing steam.
b)  We all want the state law changed, but we know that is a long, slow road.
c)  We don't really know what the moratorium covers.
d)  The city council has not clearly communicated with the residents, given that there are so many divergent opinions.
e)  We know that there is a lot of student support for what we are doing.

Now, let us put ourselves in the City of Los Angeles' Position:
a)  Koretz is congratulating himself.
b)  There is some kind of moratorium going.
c)  The last thing they need is more trouble from angry citizens with the Occupy movement struggle coming.
d)  They know they have been vague.  
e)  Rosendahl (sp?)  is firmly in our court, and maybe LeBonge and Koretz. They don't need trouble.

So what are our options?  (these are not mutually exclusive we can do more than one of them)
a)  We can keep slowly plodding along and hope things change. Keep nudging the channels.
b)  We can seize the moment of uncertainty and make the bold move of declaring that we believe that the moratorium has been restored (like it has been for 80 years) based on facts on the ground (parked cars), conversations with enforcement officers, etc.  In short, park our cars the way we always have, and risk tickets with the idea that if we actually get tickets, we have an issue to rekindle the whole debate (if we know this, the politicians know this).  We would, of course, spread word-of-mouth that apron parking is back to maximize the number of cars apron parked and thus the risk to the city).
c)  Write Koretz and tell him that we believe the moratorium has been restored and we can park as we traditionally have, putting a clock on him if we haven't heard from him in a week. That puts him in the position of having to deliver bad news to the residents of the north village (who number more than the 800 votes he won by in the last election -- not a good move). Or, he uses whatever influence he has in the city and UCLA to make our perception a reality.  And, if he doesn't respond by our deadline (and it will take all of us writing), we've got a good case and we have an actual media story with controversy.
d)  We contact Chancellor Block and tell him how much trouble his meddlesome professors have caused, especially now that the Apron Parking issue in the suit was thrown out and ask him how he plans to compensate us for our expenses (garage fees), time and trouble.  I think Block has a lot of influence if he wants to use it, and some have even suggested that he can supersede local and state law (as he does with Environmental Impact Reports and the like).  
e)  We mutter to all of the above, and the media about lawsuits were considering.
f)  Anything else we can think of.

We can do any or all of these things.  The bold plan would be to seize the moment, write Koretz (or not) and tell him we think the moratorium is back on, and, on an appointed day, take back our spaces and see if we are ticketed.  We could also put notices under our windshields telling parking enforcement people that we believe the moratorium has been reinstated and we deserve notification before ticketing if it has not.  

All of them puts the city and enforcement people in an awkward position. The enforcement company doesn't want to be on the receiving end of a lawsuit (whether or not we would ever file one).  As we've noted, most people will back off with just the threat.  

Anyway, what we do need to do is pick a course. I'm good with any of these, but favor seizing the first opportunity we've had since this all started.  I'm not sure when we'll get another one.

Flint





On Nov 5, 2011, at 9:25 AM, Roxane Stern wrote:

 

Will send out another email soon, but this is just a report on our latest (last) protest rally in North Village.

The weather cooperated and we had no rain during the almost 2 hours we were at Strathmore and Levering yesterday afternoon.

Again, not a lot of people, but those who stopped were supportive.  One thing we realize now

The new motion with a moratorium on banning apron parking is a disaster. Cars parked on the street will still get ticketed.

However, North Village parking enforcement officers are not ticketing ANY apron parked cars.  So, we now have cars parked on the apron in violation of the law, but they are not getting tickets!

 

We had an active group manning the corners.  Flint, Gwyna, Wolfgang, Phil, and Bob were terrific.

And thanks to Nanette for passing out flyers before hand.

Roxane

 

Roxane Stern

11053 Strathmore Dr

Los Angeles CA 90024

310-443-1106

 


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