Some Fountain Valley residents to benefit from permit parking during holidays

Acting to assist with neighborhood impacts during the holidays, Fountain Valley will again issue preferential parking permits to certain residents, with the nominal fee being waived this time around.

The parking permits — decals applied to the lower left rear window of residents’ cars — serve to protect the city’s residential neighborhoods adjacent to Mile Square Park and Santa Ana’s Centennial Park from overflow traffic during the warm weather holidays.

Those holidays include Easter (April 17), Cinco de Mayo (May 5), Mother’s Day (May 8), Memorial Day (May 30), Independence Day (July 4) and Labor Day (Sept. 5).

“Essentially, it is a mitigation effort for the residents [next to] Mile Square Park on the county side,” Fountain Valley Police Chief Matt Sheppard said. “Traditionally, the large holidays draw significant crowds to Mile Square Park, and the interior parking and exterior parking cannot handle the capacity, and the residential neighborhoods are impacted by the influx of vehicles looking for a parking space.”

The Tet Festival could be considered as an additional period for which the permits will apply in future years, Sheppard said.

Sheppard said the preferential parking comes back to Fountain Valley City Council each year for approval. Barricades are placed at the openings of the affected neighborhoods as the holiday approaches, notifying the public that parking is by permit only on those days specifically.

Once a permit has been acquired, it is good for successive years, but they used to cost residents $3. On a request by City Councilman Glenn Grandis that the fee to be removed for this year, with an eye on making it a no-cost permit permanently, the panel voted to drop it.

“I’m all about raising revenue for the city, but I’m all about raising revenue for the city that doesn’t affect our residents,” Grandis said. “This is a fee that we’re charging our residents, and quite candidly, they’re a little bit inconvenienced by this already.”

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