Letter to Councilmember Rosendahl RE: OPD Implementation

October 22, 2006

Dear Councilmember Rosendahl,

As you know, the Ad Hoc Overnight Parking District (OPD) Committee of the Venice Neighborhood Council has been working diligently since April of 2006 to implement LA 80.54 in neighborhoods in Venice where the residents have requested it.

Our work actually began in February, 2006 with a community meeting attended by Mark Antonio Grant and the subsequent formation of the Ad Hoc Committee per your request that we work through the VNC using 80.54 as a tool. The committee was established, and we were chosen as co-chairs.

Our OPD committee began with public meetings roughly every two weeks from April through June. At those meetings we discussed every aspect of OPD we could ferret out of the ordinance and any and all input we could gain from the Venice stakeholders. We determined permit parameters, fee structures, and the threshold for percentage of residents needed to qualify a street segment of OPD. We discussed options, and decided to go with a super majority of 66%. Contacting that many people on a street made for much work for our "street captains" (those collecting the signatures) but the committee felt that the high standard would make the support for an OPD clear to all.

A flyer was designed by one of our committee members, Alyson Wilson. We made minor changes to the flyer after a great deal of public comment. We did our best to make Venice residents aware of what we were doing, through various forms of outreach, including local newspapers, email distribution lists, and VNC publications.

We then developed street captain training sessions so that information given to the residents was as consistent and accurate as possible. Each street captain was given a packet of information and specific instructions. We currently have 45 street captains. These people have worked very hard to go door to door to tell their neighbors of this opportunity to effect parking problems in Venice. We set a goal of August to present the first set of petitions the board of the VNC. The petitions were ratified by the board of the VNC and passed on to you for your action to initiate 80.54 where requested.

It is now October and we are getting regular emails and phone calls asking when a resolution with our request for OPD is going to the LA City Council and when OPD will be implemented. We feel that all of us deserve a definitive answer from you regarding our request to have 80.54 enacted. People have volunteered many hours on this process and expect results.

Our ad hoc committee was created for one year. We would like to see the signs go up as soon as possible so that other streets have the opportunity to see the results. If other streets would like to become part of the OPD, they will have the opportunity to do so.

It has also been brought to our attention that there must be an approval from the Coastal Commission prior to implementation of OPD. Has that been done?

Please tell us when the request for OPD will go to the LA City Council and, if approved, how long after will we expect OPD to be fully implemented.

Thank you,
Georgann Abraham and Stewart Oscars, co-chairs Ad Hoc OPD committee / VNC