MAILBAG - March 6, 2008

Follow the spirit of the traffic law for safety

When an individual does 90% of their business by phone, answering calls is important. We all know from news programs and papers that driving and using a cell is a dangerous business. Pulling to the curb to take a call is both safe and sane. No distraction, no accidents, no lives in danger. Your automobile is at idle, driver is still at the wheel, phone call lasting 2 minutes, 28 seconds (verified by phone records) before you are on the road again. Safe, sane, nobody in danger!

Now, along comes a street sweeping truck. What are the chances of this happening? The driver couldn’t help noticing the car and driver. Nobody expects the truck driver to honk the horn or get out and ask the person in the automobile to move, not part of the job, besides, he or she has a means of generating a ticket, bringing the city of Huntington Beach (or other city) some easy money.

To add to our challenge, the “posted sign” referred to by the investigator in Huntington Beach is not located where it can be easily observed when entering this particular tract from Goldenwest Street as implied by the investigator. Since the location of the sign is the major provision for enforcing this law and justifying the citation, the city is on very shaky ground this time, in my humble opinion. A person not living in the tract is at a great disadvantage when trying to do business and obey the laws.

We do not deny that the individual was at the curb, in her car with the motor running, “stopped” — not parked. We understand, when in doubt, issue the ticket, that’s the easy way and “the law.” But give a conscientious driver no slack when the event is explained and justified? When a driver goes out of her way to assure the safety of individuals around her it should count for something. Is the city of Huntington Beach so hard up for cash they have no compassion or sense of reason? Laws aren’t black and white, no matter what enforcement people think. There are often shades of gray to be considered.

CA Vehicle Code 22500 regarding “stopping, standing or parking” starts out as: No person shall stop, park, or leave standing any vehicle whether attended or unattended, “except when necessary to avoid conflict with other traffic.”

Definitions:

“Stopping” is the coming to rest or the state of being at rest of a vehicle. It is the stopping or standing of a vehicle whether occupied or not.

I know this may seem like a small thing to most people but our question is, how many times does this kind of thing happen and what can be done to cut people who are caught in this catch 22?

Frank Dickinson

Huntington Beach

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Now visitors won’t get lost in Surf City

The City Council has successfully erected brand spanking new signs for the sum of $315,000. They announce the boundaries of our “Surf City” as opposed to the one located up north.

The marvel of their achievement is that they have managed to make them appear, judging by the amount of rust they contain, as though they were planted on our incorporation date over a century ago.

The council justified the signs to allow visitors to locate us easily. Now we can expect more than 150,000 visitors to find us on the Fourth of July. I wonder how they found us last year.

Rod Kunishige

Huntington Beach

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Letters don’t mention developer deals

I guess talking about using park fees as intended really struck a nerve. Two big letters were written last week touting how one side was so right (theirs) and one side was so wrong. At issue has always been protecting Central Park from commercial development.

Notice in last weeks’ letters they never mentioned the developer deal that has been struck? How downtown gets more populated, but gains no park land?

They aren’t addressing this piece of the scheme as it is reality and without the developer money, there is no senior center. That money, under the Quimby Act, belongs to the city’s parks.

Dean Misczynski, the state’s leading expert on this act, is noted in a published article regarding this specific debate that he has never heard of the fee being used to fund a senior center as often, the money goes for parks.

“The idea of a city asking for something that was utterly unrelated to the project wasn’t in our consciousness because it was so far away from what cities were asking for,” Misczynski, who helped draft the law, was quoted as saying in a December newspaper article.

Mike Roos, who in 1982 co-wrote the law that governs the Mello Roos tax, said he was concerned that building a senior center miles away from those who are being taxed to build it was an “inappropriate use” of funds.

The initial intent and spirit of the law was that those who would be taxed would have almost exclusive use of what they pay for, Roos said in the newspaper article.

Also, if the current center has a budget of $1,027,000 per year, how can that figure be relevant to a new building that is four times the size? Won’t there be added costs with the much larger facility and needed staff? Won’t utilities cost more?

Let’s try not to insult the public with logic that says we can run it for the same cost as running the much smaller Rodgers Center.

I do like the argument for a green building with “as many green features as fiscally possible.” It would make sense for a commercial development project in our largest park to be as environmentally friendly as possible. The city, though, has scaled back the requirements for this due to financial concerns. Bring on the stucco and concrete.

Last, the discussion of Measure C. Voting to protect our parkland and open space is too important and that is why Measure C exists.

The City Charter, the “fundamental law” of the city of Huntington Beach, states:

“It is the intent of Charter Section 612, the Measure ‘C’ amendment, that a vote of the people be the final approval of projects approved by the city for construction on park land or beaches. Therefore, all projects falling under the criteria of Charter Section 612 must obtain all city approvals prior to being submitted to a vote of the people. If the project requires a lease or other financial consideration, the terms and conditions of the lease and/or financial aspect of the project shall be included in the information provided for the Charter Section 612 vote.”

We now know that the vote was not the final approval, and the “terms and conditions of the financial aspect of the project” were not made public.

The Charter language states that a Measure C vote is to be taken with all details disclosed. If the city is so sure we all want this project — vote again.

A new vote will be more honest as we now know it will be a $22 million community center built with public park fees and financed by a developer deal.

Mindy White

Parks Legal Defense Fund