The long-awaited “parking study” arrived with a thud. A Culver City 6th grader could readily see the flaws in the KOA Corporation’s Technical Memorandum.
For example, KOA: (1) failed to disclose its management’s long-term personal relationship with a senior member of the Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church (Church); (2) made no effort to determine whether the Farragut permit-only-parking restrictions had any alleged impact upon the Church’s ability to function; (3) provided misleadingly and out-of-context quotations; (4) relied upon a totally unscientific and unauthenticated “survey” from the Church, and failed to interview Church administrators; (5) misconstrued the easily verifiable number of on-street parking spaces available on Farragut by considering the wrong geographic area—erroneously including Overland to the alley to raise the number of available parking place and skew all statistics against the Farragut residents; (6) used illogical speculation claiming that the TOW AWAY 2-hour parking restrictions left in place did not cause numerous persons to park their cars on surrounding streets rather than Farragut; and (7) provided internally inconsistent calculations.
On the other hand, KOA provided substantial evidence that, without being handicapped by the TOW AWAY 2-hour parking restrictions, Farragut could have easily satisfied the permit-only parking criteria.
In effect, the “parking study” provided no basis to remove the permit-only parking restrictions that have been in effect on Farragut since 1982.
The City Council has placed our multiple requests that it acknowledge and address allegations that former Council Member Andrew Weissman and some senior staffers violated the Culver City Code of Ethics. Using email communications, Weissman applied backroom pressure on staff to rig the “parking study,” and requested that the rigging not be brought to the public’s attention. Some staffers ignored their duty to prevent and report such activities.
Also, we filed a Public Records Act request with Culver City to obtain a writing setting forth the names of the persons on Culver City’s Ethics Advisory Committee and a copy of all of the Committee’s meeting minutes since 1996. Culver City responded that it has no such documents.
On Sept. 12, 2016, we appear before the Culver City City Council. The real “study” will be to determine whether the City Council has any courage and integrity.
— Les Greenberg
Culver City