When I drove by 4th and Rose last night, I saw a plethora of vans, station wagons and other vehicles being used to house Vehicular Dwellers. Given the fact that vehicles of this size will not be affected by OVO’s and the following news from the Councilman’s office … expect no change in the amount of Vehicle Dwellers illegally living on the streets of Venice.
Feel free to email some of the people on this list and ask them for weekly updates on statistics in regard to LAPD enforcement of LAMC 85.02. The law is the law, and if it is being enforced they will be able to tell you how many people were cited with 85.02 violations each week.
From Mike Bonin at Councilman Rosendahl’s office:
We just heard officially from the City Attorney that, due to state law, the OVO cannot apply to cards with disabled placards. City Attorney had previously advised of us and the VSA of this informally, but they gave a formal opinion at our request this week. Generally speaking, we can only ban vehicles with placards in area where there is no parking whatsoever.
To quote from the City Attorney’s Office:
“Vehicles with disabled placards are exempt from the restrictions set forth in the Oversize Vehicle Ordinance. However, vehicles with disabled placards are not exempt from all parking restrictions. For example, Vehicle Code Section 22511.5 (a)(3), which discusses placard privileges, states that the permission to park “on streets upon which preferential parking privileges and height limits have been given” does not apply to a zone which absolutely prohibits stopping, parking or standing of all vehicles or which the law reserves for certain types of vehicles. Accordingly, the determination of whether vehicles with handicapped placards are exempt from applicable parking restrictions will need to be made on a case by case basis. “
Added information from Councilman Rosendahl’s office:
Councilman Rosendahl did not propose or suggest the Oversized Vehicle Ordinance. He moved forward on the OVO amendment at the request of the Venice Stakeholders Association and other constituents. During discussions of amendments to the OVO back in May, VSA asked the City Attorney if disabled placards would be exempt. City Attorney advised VSA they would indeed be exempt. While VSA’s attorney thought a different interpretation of state law possible, VSA decided not to pursue the issue, and stated it would explore the issue again if the OVO was implemented and proved unworkable due to the disabled placards.
This week, after a flurry of questions from constituents about the placards and the OVO, we asked the question again of City Attorney, and asked them to put something in writing so that we could share it publicly.
