Reflections and Observations

Bad Move #1

Main Street, south of Pico, is one of Santa Monica's most interesting strands. With its mix of highly idiosyncratic galleries, bars and restaurants and shops, it's a great place to idle, poke about, stare, hang out. As commercial streets go, it's just about perfect. There's just one problem. In the evenings, on weekends and balmy, palmy week days, finding a place to park on or near Main Street can be an all-day project. It isn't a new problem. Main Street merchants and Ocean Park residents have petitioned City Hall again and again for some sort of relief. Former mayor Judy Abdo said at a recent City Council meeting that they'd been talking about it since 1974. Maybe so.

Finally, the merchants came up with their own plan and proposed it to the City. They wanted the City to reduce rates in two beach parking lots on Barnard Way through the summer, in order to encourage beach-goers to park in the lots rather than on or near Main Street, as well as offering Main Street-bound people a convenient and inexpensive place to park. It was a simple plan.

It could be implemented overnight. And it was temporary—a test, if you will, of a sensible, inexpensive solution to Main Street's dilemma. But, on the recommendation of City staff, the Council rejected the proposal.

What? 

The basis for the rejection of the plan was as convoluted as the plan was simple. Since the City is in the process of developing a comprehensive parking plan in the Coastal Zone with the Coastal Commission, Staff said and the majority of Council members agreed that the adoption of any interim measures might jeopardize the big plan.

Why?

The Coastal Commission is charged with insuring that people have full coastal access. Clearly, lower beach lot parking rates would make the coast more accessible to more people. Therefore one would think the Commission would not simply approve, but applaud the Main Street proposal. Apparently, Staff and some Council members disagree. And so a sensible, simple plan was rejected and the parking problems on Main Street persist.

Bad move, City Hall.

Bad Move #2

We don't spend a lot of time thinking about, much less worrying about Orange County, but some ominous stuff has gone on there lately that we should all be worried about.

Earlier this year, the very large Vietnamese community protested the placement of a Communist flag and other paraphernalia in a video store window in Westminster. The demonstrations were large and noisy and, sometimes, violent and they went on for weeks and succeeded in shutting down the store. To put it another way, the mob, and that's what it was, did not simply violate but overturned the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution: freedom of speech. And they got away with it.

Last week, the same Vietnamese community protested the presence of a painting in an exhibit of Vietnamese art at Bowers Museum in Santa Ana because the painting smacked of Communism to them. The museum caved in immediately to the pressure and pulled the painting from the show. Once again, the First Amendment was violated. A couple of days later, the Museum reversed its course and announced that the painting would be included in the exhibit. But the damage had been done.

America has a long, proud tradition of welcoming immigrants from other countries, with the proviso that they respect and abide by not only our laws, but our principles. But when immigrants ignore, violate or attempt to undo a fundamental American principle—such as freedom of speech, and the communities they live in allow them to get away with it, then damage is done to the American fabric and we all lose.

This is not to say that the Vietnamese shouldn't be permitted to protest. It is to say that they shouldn't be allowed to shut down a store or force a museum to bow to their demands.

Bad move, Orange county. 

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