Between The Lines -- Byron de Arakal

The point has arrived in this curious and troubling deliberation over

the fate of motor homes in Costa Mesa where we can fairly call the city’s

intended actions a kind of legislative carjacking. That’s because on

Monday, a small majority of the City Council inched closer to slashing

the tires -- figuratively speaking -- of motor home owners in this town.

Now if you’re one those RVs-are-a-cancer-on-society boosters, this is

welcome news. But only because it’s not a liberty of yours that’s in

danger of being snatched, without cause, from beneath your nose. For

red-blooded, freedom-loving Costa Mesans like Bill Folsom -- a

law-abiding motor home owner -- the council’s action has to leave them

wondering if they’re living in a gulag.

I’m less inclined to do any wondering at all at this point. I mean,

it’s bad enough that government, in any form, is inclined to indulge

itself in lawmaking for lack of any clue about what it might do if it

weren’t lawmaking. But when it begins to construct Byzantine shackles on

freedoms without any substantive evidence that those freedoms pose a

threat to the public trust and welfare, then a gulag it is. Here’s what

we have.

Fearing that our fair township of Costa Mesa is under siege by an

invading force of illegally parked motor homes, the City Council has been

of a mind since October to ban the parking of these things on city

streets altogether. To be fair, the council has dispensed dashes of

benevolence -- though grudgingly and incrementally -- as it entertains

exceptions to the rule.

The council first noodled on language that would allow motor home

owners to park their vehicles on the street in front of their homes for a

period not to exceed 24 hours. But they could only do so “for purposes of

loading, unloading, cleaning, battery charging, or other activity

preparatory or incidental to travel.”

When the constraints of those legal handcuffs reached the city’s motor

home owners, they descended on council chambers en masse, torching the

dais with complaints that 24 hours wasn’t nearly long enough to prepare

for or return from their road trips. Singed, the council retreated to

give the ordinance more thought.

What emerged Monday from the January confab -- and the clubbing the

council took -- was an elaborate legal noose that gave the motor home

owners the 72 hours they wanted (and which is the amount of time the

current law allows). But it also sought to codify what can only be

construed, in my estimation, as a scarlet letter.

To be legally parked on Costa Mesa streets for the allotted 72-hour

limit, RV owners would need to trundle down to the Costa Mesa Police

Department and apply for a permit. They’d receive a bright orange placard

to display on their motor home while parked in preparation for leaving on

or arriving home from a road trip.

Never mind that these placards might serve as beacons to thieves

casing neighborhoods, a point astutely made by Councilman Gary Monahan.

Rather, it was the edict in the law that suggested these permits be

rationed that began to strike the gulag chords within me. “A resident,”

the ordinance was so kind to indicate, “may obtain a maximum of twelve

(12) RV Parking Permits per residence per calendar year.” Worse, the

12-permit limit would allow just six trips -- one permit to park in

preparation to leave, and one parking permit for cleaning up after.

Now it’s bad enough in certain Libertarian quarters of my head that

this city government -- indeed, government of any kind -- has a desire to

restrict the parking of a type of vehicle I choose to own. It becomes

flat-out spooky when it reveals designs on new laws that, by definition,

restrict the number of times I can travel during the year.

And for what purpose? Certain members of the council and the Police

Department would have us believe that the law is necessary in light of a

growing raft of complaints pouring in from the community about these

monstrous eyesores. Yet no one on the council or in the Police Department

can quantify that hue and cry. Nor can anyone produce hard data that

street-parked RVs have produced a spate of traffic accidents, or that

they prevent street sweeping any more than normal passenger vehicles

parked at curbside.

Costa Mesa Police Lt. Karl Schuler attempted to produce some evidence

Monday, pointing to a stack of reports he said represented resident

complaints about illegally parked RVs. But were the problem merely an

enforcement issue, us freedom lovers might suggest the council simply

repeal the current parking restrictions altogether.

Unless the City Council has the data to prove that motor homes are a

threat to the public’s safety and welfare, it should jettison its RV

assault and simply enforce the law that’s on the books.

* Byron de Arakal is a writer and communications consultant. He lives

in Costa Mesa. Readers can reach him with news tips and comments via

e-mail at o7 byronwriter@msn.comf7 .