City Preps Residents to Defend Beach Parking Zones

By Jorge Casuso

On the surface, it seemed just another meeting of city staff and their constituents.

But with seven Ocean Park preferential parking zones on the line - all of them more than 10 years old -, Saturday's meeting at the Ken Edwards Center was anything but routine.

Instead of just providing information and listening to concerns, planning department staff helped coach and organize some three dozen residents for a crucial Coastal Commission meeting Tuesday morning.

After a year's delay, the commission finally will decide the fate of 936 preferential parking spaces south of Pico Boulevard and east of Lincoln Boulevard that were created by the city without commission approval between 1983 and 1989. The commission discovered the spaces in 1998, while considering the Edgemar Development project on Main Street.

"Don't be exclusionary," Planning Director Suzanne Frick advised the residents. "What is important is to put a face on this issue. We don't want to alienate this commission."

Among the key points city staff encouraged residents to make are the dearth of street parking, the availability of parking in beach lots and the make up of the community (it is not just rich homeowners).

Residents who spoke at Saturday's meeting said they feared that if preferential parking is revoked they wouldn't be able to move their cars or entertain guests, especially on weekends, because there will often be nowhere to park near their homes.

"I can't leave during the day, but there are empty spaces on the beach," said one resident who lives in a zone near Main Street with no daytime restrictions. "As usual, the residents are going to be caught in the middle of this squabble."

While there are 2,400 spaces in Ocean Park's two beach lots, it costs $7 to park ($6 during the winter.) By comparison, unrestricted street parking is free.

Frick, however, warned against bringing up the underused lot, saying that lowering the rates - which already are cheaper than the rates at Venice Beach and Will Rogers State Park - is not on the table.

She did encourage residents who blamed the parking woes not on beach goers, but on employees and customers of Main Street businesses, to speak out on Tuesday.

"It's a major impact," said Roger Genser, a 22-year resident of Ocean Park who helped organize the first Ocean Park zone in 1983. "It was a reaction against Main Street. It had nothing to do with beach parking."

Tuesday's decision will center on whether Santa Monica's zones restrict access to the beach, which the Coastal Commission was created in 1976 to protect.

Commission staff has recommended that the seven zones be retained - with the caveat that the city must reapply for the permits in three years. The city opposes that condition, saying it would be too costly, inhibit long-range planning and leave residents in limbo. Instead city staff is proposing to conduct a parking monitoring program and file a report within five years.

Commission staff also is requiring the city to create 154 spaces to help replenish those taken up by preferential parking. Of these, 65 already have been created. The city also must keep the Tide and Pier beach shuttles running during the summer months.

While Coastal Commission staff seems sympathetic to the plight of beach area residents, it is impossible to predict what the commission will do, Frick said. One warning sign was a complaint by a commissioner who visited the beach to watch the sunset and found no place to park.

"We've been discussing this with the staff for a year and a half," Frick said. "I think this really boils down to philosophical issues with the commission."

Although the city has been negotiating with commission staff, it also has made it clear that it is prepared to file a lawsuit if the commission revokes the zones.

"We have a difference of legal opinion as to whether the Coastal Commission even has authority," Frick said. "We would prefer to go through the process and have a positive outcome."

Since the Coastal Act was passed in 1976, the Coastal Commission has required cities to apply for permits for the special parking zones.

Historically, the Coastal Commission has granted permission for preferential parking zones in coastal communities, often imposing strict conditions to ensure plenty of public parking and beach access.

Since 1982 the commission has approved three applications from Hermosa Beach, Santa Cruz and Capitola. The commission, however, has denied preferential parking permits for Santa Monica's closest neighbors - Venice to the south and Pacific Palisades to the north.

In 1998 approximately 7.5 million visitors flocked to Santa Monica beaches. Over the past 28 years beach attendance has grown by 20 percent.

City Manager Susan McCarthy, who did not attend the meeting, said it would be "unforgivable" if residents weren't prepared given what's at stake.

"The Coastal Commission has a relatively clear mission laid out in the law, and in this situation, it may not be a mission that is sympathetic," McCarthy said. "This would certainly be a profound change."

The Coastal Commission will meet Tuesday at 10 a.m. at the Four Points Sheraton, 530 Pico Blvd.

Staff writer Teresa Rochester contributed to this report.

Board of Education Tackles Parcel Tax, High School Testing

By Teresa Rochetser

Santa Monica and Malibu voters heading to the polls in November may be asked to renew and possibly increase the cities' parcel tax, which is set to expire next year.

In an unanimous vote Thursday night, the Board of Education approved the formation of a committee of 30 to 35 parents, city officials and community members to study the feasibility of placing the renewal and possible expansion of the tax on November's ballot. Voters approved a renewal of the tax in 1994.

"Ideally we would have started it [process] in January not mid-February," Superintendent Neil Schmidt told the board. "But with everything going on in the district other things had to be moved."

Following a tight timeline, committee members, who will be appointed and approved by board members and Schmidt, will be installed on March 2. A professional polling company also will be hired to gauge public opinion, which will cost the district approximately $20,000. The committee will report its findings and recommendations by April 6.

If the committee recommends seeking renewal of the parcel tax, which brought in approximately $2.3 million to the financially beleaguered school district last year, the district will launch an approximately $100,000 campaign to get the word out to voters.

The flat rate tax was first approved by voters in 1984 and was renewed and increased in 1990 and 1994. Art Cohen, assistant superintendent of business and financial services, said the district is fortunate to have the parcel tax as a source of income because very few districts do.

"This is very rare," Cohen said. "Because what you need is two-thirds of the public's votes."

The board also approved a plan in a 6 to 1 vote to test high school students' proficiency in math and language arts before allowing them to graduate. The plan is temporary and will be replaced by the new-state-mandated High School Exit Exam, which has not yet been created.

The High School Exit Exam is part of the state's highly vaunted and equally criticized school accountability program that started this year with the Academic Performance Indicator, a complex system of ranking schools throughout the state.

Board Member Dorothy Chapman cast the lone dissenting vote for the interim plan, which will require students who don't perform up to par to attend summer school and participate in enrichment programs. Chapman felt students were not fully informed of the new policy.

"This has very serious consequences for students, and I really want them to see this," Chapman said. "I think they need to stop having policy happen to them but with them."

Known as the cuts made far from the classroom by district officials trying to alleviate a potential $5 million budget shortfall, bus drivers, secretaries, custodians and office aids pleaded for their jobs before the board saying they too are important in the classroom.

"The classified staff impacts the classroom," said Schmidt's secretary Karen Perrot. "We wanted to put a human face on these cuts."