From bwest69 at pacbell.net Sun Dec 4 21:37:13 2005 From: bwest69 at pacbell.net (bill west) Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2005 21:37:13 -0800 Subject: [OldNorth] No parking zones for street parking Message-ID: <303774B1-6551-11DA-8E3E-000393BF364E@pacbell.net> cc Old North: FYI TO: Safety Advisory Commission Bill Bernheim; Dan Fenocchio; Xiaopei (Chad) Qi; Andrew Ramos; Sean Shimada, & Tim Spangler (Alternate) c/o DPW, 23 Russell Blvd, Davis 95616 FM: Bill West, homeowner 612 E Street and Stacy Baba 614 E Street (530) 753-3144 SUBJECT: Agenda Item D-1 Dec. 8 meeting, 5:00 pm No Parking Zone for Purposes of Street Sweeping in N. Davis It is difficult to collect one?s thoughts and then present them smartly at a public hearing ... thus I?m writing. Please consider the following points: * Why no vote? No one has asked for our votes on this parking issue ... although we were empowered to vote on the ?N? parking zone issue. Why not vote on this one? * Can We avoid tickets? Some neighbors, like us, take Bart to Bay Area and bus to Sac Airport periodically ... and necessarily leave our cars on the street overnight. Are we to get tickets for not moving our cars across the street while we are gone? What will such tickets cost? * Where can we park while gone? Where will we be able to park our cars to avoid getting tickets? Is there a public street or City parking lot where we can safely leave our cars for 3 or 4 day trips, up to a week? Will multi-day overnight parking on various city streets be legalized to accommodate we travelers? In addition to trips of a few days to a week ... there are one day or overnight trips on Wednesdays/Thursdays that would make parking ?across the street? not possible for us. The COOP disfavors using their lot overnight, as do the local banks & businesses on 4th. * Reduced tickets? If the ordinance is passed, can we have a reduced ticket amount, say $5 for 'no-other-option' violators that would not break our banks? * No-ticket situation? What about an exemption from a parking ticket if the homeowner has personally cleaned the area in front of his home? After all, the whole idea presumably is to get the streets swept, not to generate revenue. I.e., no tickets for parking in street areas that are clean, where further street sweeping would be wasteful. * Only in Autumn when leaves fall. Assuming that homeowners fail in their own personal responsibilities to rake leaves .... in the Autumn when leaves fall. Why not limit the ordinance to Oct .. Nov .. and Dec? Totally unnecessary the other 9 months of the year. * Friction among neighbors. Neighbors will be competing for their customary home parking spots on Thursdays and Fridays. Friction is guaranteed. Is this worth the perceived benefit of slightly more thorough sweeping? * Why not a voluntary choice? Why not encourage people to park across the street instead of making it an offense punishable by ticket? This encouragment would be effective if presented by the Old North Assoc. on a neighborly basis. * Why not once a month instead of weekly? Especially since leaves only fall in the Autumn ... why not change the rule to only the first weekend of each month? * Not a homeowner?s association. Old N. Davis association does fine work ... but it is not a homeowner?s association that can rule by fiat, and it ought to be required by the City to get a vote of the residents before presenting proposed ordinances on any topic for adoption by the City. This even though the City conducts public hearings which, by their nature, are no substitute for reasoned votes by the citizens. * Mondays (garbage days) already are difficult parking days. Some people park in front of garbage cans on Mondays and in front of (or on top of) leaf piles on Wednesdays. Neighbors help each other move stuff when these situations arise. But we don?t need Thursday and Friday ?no parking zones? to cause more neighborhood problems as we compete for limited spaces. * Present system OK for years. For years almost all homeowners have kept their respective portions of the street clean in front of their homes ... and street sweeping has been eminently adequate for years as it is now done (at least in my opinion). * ?X? zone treated differently? Do people who park in "X zone" (e.g., E street, 4th-5th) have to park on opposite sides for street sweeping? I don't think so. Can we park there for a few days at a time without being ticketed (or worse, towed) as ?abandoned? cars? Thank you for taking the time to read and consider these points. Bill W. West (530) 753-3144 -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 4750 bytes Desc: not available URL: