You wrote:

“If approved, a Venice OPD will prohibit walk street residents and those near the beach from parking on Venice streets.”

This isn’t correct. They won’t get to vote for wether or not to have OPDs on the streets adjacent to their homes, but they absolutely get to buy permits, just like their neighbors.

I don’t know how this rumor got spread, but I’ve heard it a lot. Yet when I talked to folks at DOT, Rosendahl’s office, and the Neighborhood Council, they all say this isn’t the case. Any resident on a walk street or those near Speedway are can buy permits if they need to.

Also, I’d like to point out it’s highly unlikely OPDs will happen anywhere near Speedway. The parking there is already highly restricted (2 hour zones, no parking between 8am to 8pm, etc) so there isn’t really any need to restrict parking any further.

In a dissent, 9th Circuit Judge Pamela Rymer, also of Pasadena, said the high court’s decisions were applicable only to crimes of status and not crimes of conduct.

Los Angeles doesn’t punish people “simply because they are homeless” but because they sit, lie or sleep on city sidewalks, conduct “that can be committed by those with homes as well as those without,” Rymer wrote.

She said “neither the Supreme Court nor any other circuit court of appeals has ever held that conduct derivative of a status may not be criminalized.”

The 9th Circuit majority, however, found conduct and status inseparable in the Los Angeles case, “given that human beings are biologically compelled to rest.”

Sunday, April 16, 2006
Homeless Camping, A Legal Victory
In this story from Saturday’s Bee it appears the ability to camp in a city’s open space without restriction may have obtained legal standing, and this has impact in Sacramento as the article notes, as these arguments have been used here to drop charges of illegal camping in the Parkway.

While it may be compassionate to the unfortunate individuals and families without a roof over their head, it places a severe handicap on areas, such as the American River Parkway, and the adjacent communities, where illegal camping becomes an issue of public safety, trash accumulation, and habitat destruction.

Here is an excerpt.

Court: L.A. law is unfair to homeless
By Claire Cooper — Bee Legal Affairs Writer Published 2:15 am PDT Saturday, April 15, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO – Because thousands of homeless people in Los Angeles have no shelters to turn to, a federal appeals court ruled Friday that the city violates their rights by enforcing its broad ban against sitting, lying or sleeping on public streets and sidewalks.

The Eighth Amendment, which prohibits “cruel and unusual punishments,” bars punishment of “involuntary sitting, lying or sleeping on public sidewalks that is an unavoidable consequence of being human and homeless without shelter in the City of Los Angeles,” said a divided panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The decision, written by Judge Kim Wardlaw of Pasadena, was a rare victory for the homeless against cities that have attempted to eradicate signs of their presence by using various “anti-camping” ordinances.

In the Los Angeles case, unlike some others that cities have won, homeless advocates presented undisputed evidence of a shortage of shelter beds. Los Angeles also has a broader law than other cities. It allows public sitting only on benches or during permitted parades.

Friday’s ruling did not strike down the law but required that it be narrowed.

The decision was based on 1960s-vintage U.S. Supreme Court decisions barring punishment of alcoholics and drug addicts on the basis of their addiction.

In a dissent, 9th Circuit Judge Pamela Rymer, also of Pasadena, said the high court’s decisions were applicable only to crimes of status and not crimes of conduct.

Los Angeles doesn’t punish people “simply because they are homeless” but because they sit, lie or sleep on city sidewalks, conduct “that can be committed by those with homes as well as those without,” Rymer wrote.

She said “neither the Supreme Court nor any other circuit court of appeals has ever held that conduct derivative of a status may not be criminalized.”

The 9th Circuit majority, however, found conduct and status inseparable in the Los Angeles case, “given that human beings are biologically compelled to rest.”

Joining Wardlaw was Edward Reed Jr., a Nevada U.S. district judge assigned to the case.

The majority opinion repudiated a lower court’s 1994 decision in San Francisco that homelessness was not a status protected by the Eighth Amendment.

By ordering an injunction against Los Angeles, the 9th Circuit also went well beyond a 1998 state Court of Appeal decision that permits homeless Californians to beat criminal charges after they’re hauled into court by raising a defense of “necessity.”

The circuit judges said six homeless plaintiffs who sued are entitled “at a minimum” to a “narrowly tailored injunction” that will permit them to sit, lie down or sleep “at certain times and/or places.”

It will be up to a trial judge to set the injunction’s terms.

Similar issues have been raised in Sacramento, where local laws make it illegal to sleep, urinate, drink or store one’s belongings in public.
Posted by David H. Lukenbill at 10:05 AM

My comment is:

Yeah, there are all kinds of Draconian Laws on the Books made to address different problems at different times which is why they seem so harsh & cruel at others.

Hey–I was making out with my girlfriend & the cops knocked. 3 am. This was not in LA. We were grown people too & not drinking. We got a warning. 6 others got tickets. I still parked there later on from time to time & never got hassled. It was the Hotel Owners calling them.

Some laws are difficult if not impossible to enforce. Some things are law-enforcement nightmares. Like watching all the time to see if someone is selling something legal, in a way that circumvents the law. It’s beneficial & people want it, but local business competitors don’t want the competition so they frame an ordinance prohibiting that style of competition from happening there.

That’s not the Spirit that built this country, guys. That’s what Obama is saying. Pull together or the World will pull us apart. Who gives a crap about parking if you get terminal cancer?

Law & Love are like oil & water–they’ll never mix & you can only hope that they coexist side by side because you need them both at different times.

The thing is: Is it morally conscionable to pull out the awful sledge hammer of justice because someone or many of them (over 100,000 in LA alone) went broke (are poor)-got screwed over?

Already existing laws were thrown out when the highest Court in LA (Woman Judge, look it up) overturned all the anti-homeless ticket targeting which was up to $2,000 a night. (I’ll send the link–but this is about 2 years ago here in LA)

The final decision she wrote & was printed in the Times was that THIS Law was unfairly targeting a certain people rather than a certain behavior & was therefore descriminatory & uninforceable.

If these people had the financial savvy that made others secure, they’d be you & sad to say, perhaps you’d also be forced to be them because there was nothing left after they took it all.

I get some of the same baloney when I park in a parking lot to go into a store, or am sleeping inside a Family-members house & am parked outside. And my vehicle is not that bad.

I think this is about older cars. I still do body work on mine. Because of the proximity to the ocean, this lasts about 6 months if done right. Salt & marine layer.

“YOU’RE BEGINNING TO LOOK LIKE PART OF OUR CULTURE SO MOVE YOUR VAN!”

-zEROg

The problem with the whole OPD situation is that the
“anti-gentrification” people are hiding their true agenda behind “increased taxation based on paying to park in front of your house” and the fact that it might not help a small group of people who live west of Speedway. They talk about freedom and beach access and contend that the RV situation is a separate issue and our Councilman is presently working on a solution…

The city has been “working on a solution” for many years but realistically found that the City Attorney’s office is concerned about liabilities and insurance and private lots must be insured by the owners – no one wants to be responsible for irresponsible transients.
Even the non-profit social services that provide showers, counseling, laundry and a mail drop for the homeless are not in a position to oversee and insure even a small group of RVs on their property.

The City of LA has a law against living in vehicles on the streets or on City owned property, so this law would have to be changed FOR THE
COMPLETE CITY OF LA (not just Venice)so it is very unlikely that the City Council would vote for that as only Mr. Rosendahl seems to be interested in developing such a program.

So the answer is for the LAPD and residents to look the other way as hundreds of vehicle dwellers move onto Venice streets. This is why the community has reacted so strongly for OPDs – anything it takes to
move the vehicle dwellers on – and truthfully, nobody really cares where. They seem to go where they are allowed to hang out.

The anti-gentrificationists are presently organized by the Free Venice Beachhead Collective and their self appointed spokes-organization, The Venice Town Council. With the Beachhead crowd, I’m reminded of the Marlon Brando character in the film, The Wild One being asked, “What are you rebelling against,” and he answers “What have you got!”

I really want to out these people – they are hiding their true agenda – I always want to ask, Exactly, what is it that you REALLY want???

They appear to feel that the world has been totally screwed up by rich people, so since they can’t get at the captains of industry and finance, they will go after the closest thing that they can find to punish for a perceived prosperity…….. US! Venice homeowners and longtime residents.

Yes, it is US who have “invited the real estate corporations and big developers to town to line our pockets with gelt derived from selling out bohemian Venice. ” This thinking goes on even in light of the
present international financial crisis.

They don’t see that many of us will have to face our own uninvited financial consequences……….. they only see that they hope that we all have subprime loans and are overextended to the point of walking away from our ill-gotten properties, hence, values and rents will go down…….. property will go begging while the yuppies go home to live with mom and dad.

DELUSIONAL, and mean, misplaced anger to boot.

Too many ungraded, social structure and Poly-Sci classes, not enough business and marketing……. If prices here fell to 50% of value, the REAL rich people would buy two or three lots, tear down the houses and build new estates, turning this place into a new North of Montana. IT’S THE BLOODY BEACH!!!

It goes like this:

Squalor and crime really bug us – SO we have to PAY for living in Venice by having to live with squalor and crime. It is our penance, it is our fine. We should move if we don’t like it – It comes with the
town and “real Venetians” KNOW that this is good because it keeps the yuppies and rich people away, and that is how we like it. You should like it too – OR MOVE!

The schools are another way to keep yuppies away – thank both LAUSD and the UTLA as well as “who knows” in city government. Most people I know here with children must send them to very expensive private schools in order to get a competent education.

95% of all social services on the west side are in Venice. Most of their “clients” are “outreached” from other areas and brought here for services. Outside of the 517 low income units in Oakwood, how many
“poor” people could afford the substantial rents. This is where they bring the poor and desperate for help that the worst cases refuse.

But who cares, there are a group of people in Venice who always will organize to oppose positive changes and support crime and squalor by calling it art…… and, heavens, we can’t let the homeless stay here
in the Palisades and Brentwood …….Oh, and here is my check for your campaign fund….

Rick Feibusch
Former and Founding VNC Boardmember
member, Mobility Action Committee
coordinator, Rose Ave Working Group
editor Venice WatchDawg

One flyer said just 18 & a D.L. & another had a list of specifics that sounded beyond reach even though I have a CA Driver’s License. It would have been a day off from my job painting & hey I would have been hurting for that $12 that I made in the 8 hours I worked. Really!

Seagull-proof trashcans would clean up the streets. The Homeless get the blame for that. I’ve seen a perfectly clean college parking lot get completely trashed in under an hour by a bunch of gulls getting into one of the cans. I’ve seen them do a whole dumpster just off the boardwalk.

Have a better one. Maybe we can get permits (if it comes to that) for being a working artist here; a credit to the community. I’m sure it will come down to the address thing as always though.

Whether or not we all agree on the permit parking issue – we have an opportunity to come together to solve our problems collectively, rather than relying on a small minority of Neighborhood Council board (bored?) members to watch out for us.

Yes, the election was a fiasco and more reminiscent of high school than “serious” community politics – but it was fun! I remember standing in the polling room as a crowd of confused voters milled around me trying to interpret the initiatives on the ballot! Had I been so disposed, I could have voted several times, brought in my friends to vote several times and nobody would have been the wiser!

It’s a shame that no special access was made available to the disabled and the elderly, many of whom found it impossible to stand in line for an hour or more to vote.

I’m sure we’ll hear more about this before the dust resettles – namely, the Coastal Commission will have the final say. However, let’s not forget that L.A. City Council member, Bill Rosendahl, took $75,000 from the Venice Specific Fund last year and gave it to the city’s Bureau of Engineering to do a “survey” last June. That money would have been better spent on more trash cans and public toilets in Venice!

If you follow the money trail, who is going to benefit from it all. Certainly not the potholes in the streets. Throwing money at the problem (as we all seem to be so fond of in the USA) will not solve the problem. It will go, as it already does, to further line someone’s already full pockets!

A lady resident told me on a bus in Venice they just doubled the parking fines here, so she was riding the bus. Did they warn us? Did you see any improvement since?

If you nick a light & get caught on camera it’s a $700 fine or 50 hours community service! Have you ever slammed on the brakes & had everything hit you in the back of the head. Stoplights can be staggered & timed to prevent/allow for that sort of thing. Unless you want your kids hitting the dashboard! 1/100th of a second?

Laguna is another example of an Artist’s Colony which has become so hoity-toity, no artist can paint outdoors for fear the City might think they can potentially be offered money for what they are working on & sell something. How horrible to think they might do that! (Attention! Gallery Lobbyists at work!)

The overlords don’t want us to have a cash economy at all. This is good for them. They want a record of every single transaction (credit).

To parody the Wolf in the Little Red Ridinghood Childrens’ Tale, “The better to TAX you, my dear…” And the wolf was not her Grannny–he was a predator, trying to devour her! Have you ever noticed how poor government’s hearing can be? That’s so you can get real close before they gobble you up!

Laws should be like clothes–designed to FIT the people who are intended to wear them. Once you are “pursuaded by a perceived crisis” to accept the proposed solution & vote in favor of pass a one-size-fits-all law (another hidden tax), you open are opening a can of worms.

It’s almost impossible, (once a city gets used to tapping a particular vein of yours) to get them to stop.

CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE: I’m considered a successful working artist who contributes to the location where I work. I hate to get shunned because a few dirty do-nothings whom I do not consider my colleagues have genuinely offended local residents. I dislike being called the “H” Word. I’m aware of the problem of campers on a street who in addition to making things look sloppy will camp together, especially the rude & inconsiderate. I try not to park near them & hate their noise. I’ve chewed some of them out for these issues, but try to stay clear of them. Yes, I travel, work & remain somewhere until the locals come out with torches & pitchforks to roust those ‘gypsies’ because the good citizens are confused, over-taxed, disgruntled at their jobs, lives & parking situations & generally misled by those leading them.

Even local cops (here and elsewhere) have complimented my body of work on a number of occasions & intimate that they wish there was more like it. This, I assume, is probably because my painting actually relates to the place I am in, rather than my trying to import some other culture in the name of free speech. I’m always amazed at the fact tourists fly half-way around the World to chuckle at the “I LIKE KETCHUP ON MY KETCHUP” T-shirts that Venice (and K-Mart Worldwide) are known for.

URBAN LEGENDS: The feces, urine & needles “heresay” is nearly as ancient as the baby-stealing gypsy woman story I first heard in Italy about 30 years ago, only to hear that one repeated by someone just a few weeks back. Such verbal vehicles are known as urban legends & usually begin with the words, “they say…” in order to prop up the notion that there was an eye-witness to the event, whose name is authoritatively & reverently referred to as, ‘THEY’.

PUBLIC BATHROOMS: I’ve lived all over the World, yet nowhere do they lock the public restrooms at night except in the good ole’ USA. Knowing this, I personally employ a Coleman Port-a-Potty & use that purple formaldehyde junk you put in an RV holding tank. But, even when our public bathrooms ARE open & functioning, they are pitiful in comparison to such amenities in other countries & I’ve noticed the tourists here are appalled at their state. Some of the wealthiest communities on the Coast have had the worst public facilities I’ve ever seen. The Health Department does nothing about it! We might sadly have an outbreak of Cholera or Hepatitis A to teach us that people need open bathrooms at night. I’m sure in our Puritan-thinking, we are already imagining the kinds of horrors & abuses that would take place in these facilities if they remained open. But I think the end justifies the means. I guess Europeans learned something from the Plagues of the Middle Ages. At least they have something to write home about!

“Dear Wensaslaus, Americans like ketchup on their ketchup, feed the homeless bran muffins, lock the bathrooms at night & laugh. They spend billions on pets & interact by lowering their gaze & letting their dogs first meet (exchanging their pets’ names, sex, & pedigree), before speaking to their other owners…” Anyway, if you leave public bathrooms open all night, people will use them. -And tell those dogs to pick up after themselves! (They don’t have opposable thumbs, otherwise they’d be blogging this.)

I made a point to speak to a Parking Captain, who informed me you’re supposed to move a vehicle every 72 hours or the thing can be chalked, ticketed or towed. (So much for the ever-green notion of parking your gas-guzzler & biking to work.) With all of these NO-Zones & street-sweeping tickets (city taxes we pay for our not having permits) you have to really want or need to BE somewhere to camp out. It’s kind of like sleeping outside of the Apple Store in order to be first in line for a new product. The Venice artist boardwalk is in fact “first come, first serve. Vans & RV’s are super-cramped. I should rather pay $400 to sleep on someone’s kitchen floor (I’m told)–but I can’t afford it on an artist’s tips. Someone mentioned Trailer Parks & Campgrounds—not near enough to facilitate dragging heavy show equipment to the Beach. Again, that’s paying the inflated rent for little more than the living & storage space you already brought with you & pay for gas, smog, registration, repairs & fines to cart around.

TWEETING THE GOOD NEWS: According to the Santa Monica website, 85% of the City ARE Artists. For joy, for joy! This claim makes me wonder who is actually running that place, since Artists tend to have both feet off the ground. Assertions like that always puzzle me because if you spend 60 hours a week as a fast food restaurant employee or bookstore manager– are you still an artist? Would you even have time? It would seem as though you would more apt to be bitter at the current tradeoff you are making with your life & having to shelf your artistic talents until some later date, which would most assuredly cause you to vote in the manner Venice Citizens have recently expressed. So, perhaps some of these Votes, Ordinances & Opinions are framed out of professional jealousy aimed at the alleged competition. Ouch!

The reason I never go to certain cities (although invited) is because they do not supply me housing, a campground or even a parking space. I pay tribute to the people & the town & instead of giving me the ‘keys to the city’ they lock the bathrooms at night & attempt to ban me from their streets. Lately, I have been feeling unappreciated by the crowds & a real lack of giving (showing love in tangible terms). I’m receiving only a pittance, so maybe it’s time to go. If the vote follows suit, it is going to prevent me & a lot of others like me from remaining here.

I don’t have a trust-fund & haven’t won the lottery. (Urban Legend has it that those Artists make bank & they don’t pay taxes! Poof!) Living meagerly as I do permits me to give ALL to entertaining YOUR visitors, in Venice or elsewhere. To reiterate, if wrapped up in your work-a-day world, I would not have time to do that—to draw visitors here. No, it’s not like a permanent vacation under the palm trees—it’s like a permanent job under them – a job where you don’t get a paycheck. So it’s really up to you (since I wasn’t allowed to vote.) But after your 60 hour work week which you do in order to live in an overpriced watershed, I don’t think you’ll have the time, energy or inspiration to go out to the Boardwalk & entertain the entertain tourists. And according to Venice Recreation, whom I spoke to recently–the Artists are the main draw to this town!