Alarm in Westwood Village about city parking garages

Dear Westwood Business Owners, Property Owners, Employees, Neighbors, UCLA Community & Friends:

PLEASE DO NOT DELETE OR IGNORE THIS MESSAGE. IT IS URGENT AND TIME SENSITIVE.

Please share this message with your friends, relatives, neighbors, colleagues, customers, and ANYONE else who cares about Westwood Village....

Like The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, the Los Angeles City Council is poised to steal away our only free public parking in Westwood Village...at least for the next 50 years!

This Tuesday, December 14th at 10:00 a.m., the L.A. City Council will hear public comments on a disastrous scheme that would give away our Broxton Parking Garage located at 1036 Broxton Avenue in Westwood Village.

In a desperate move to temporarily balance its budget (lasting less than one year!), the city proposes to lease this irreplaceable public asset to private corporate investors for 50 years.

Also on the chopping block are eight other city parking garages (three in Hollywood, and one each in Downtown L.A., Studio City, Sherman Oaks, Van Nuys, and on Robertson Boulevard).

This will eliminate two-hour free parking in Westwood Village and double or triple parking fees in these nine city garages. This also will undoubtedly lead to greatly increased prices in nearby PRIVATE parking lots as well.

Even worse, the city would be PROHIBITED from building any other public parking garages within 1/8 mile of any of these nine garages. This means there would be NO OTHER PUBLIC PARKING BUILT IN WESTWOOD VILLAGE FOR AT LEAST 50 YEARS.

Free short-term parking is vital if Westwood Village is to compete with local shopping districts and malls that offer plentiful free parking, and with neighboring and outlying cities that also offer free short-term parking (Beverly Hills, Santa Monica Third Street Promenade, Culver City, Century City, Westside Pavilion, Pasadena, and many other cities and shopping districts).

Other cities that are also in a bad way financially (including Chicago), have tried similar efforts to sell off or "lease" municipal assets to balance their budgets...and always with DISASTROUS results. We don't have to GUESS that this is a bad idea. We KNOW it is a bad idea.

The Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Business Journal, and UCLA Daily Bruin all have published editorials opposing this short-sighted proposal.

EVERY Westwood community organization is opposed to this budgetary "shell game" including:
Westwood Community Council
Westwood Neighborhood Council
Westwood Village Business Association
Westwood Village Improvement Association
Holmby-Westwood Property Owners Association
Westwood Hills Property Owners Association
Westwood Homeowners Association
Comstock Hills Homeowners Association
North Westwood Village Residents’ Association
Save Westwood Village.
But this disastrous scheme it is moving forward, nevertheless.

HERE ARE 3 THINGS YOU CAN DO TO HELP STOP THIS IRREPARABLE HARM:

1. SIGN OUR PETITION
PLEASE SIGN OUR ONLINE PETITION OR RETURN ATTACHED PETITION BY FAX.
ONLINE: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/save-broxton-free-parking/
OR...SIGN AND FAX THE ATTACHED PETITION TO 310-317-7400.
2. FORWARD THIS EMAIL AND PETITION
Please share this message with your friends, relatives, neighbors, colleagues, customers, classmates, and anyone else who cares about Westwood.
Please help us reach and exceed our goal of 1,000 petition signatures by this Monday, December 13.
Post a message on Facebook, Tweet it, Text it, get the word out. Let's go viral!
3. ATTEND THE PUBLIC HEARING THIS TUESDAY, DECEMBER 14

The public hearing is this Tuesday, December 14 at 10:00 a.m. in City Hall (200 North Spring Street) in the City Council Chambers, Third Floor.

We all know it is outrageous and insensitive that the City Council would try to do this 11 days before Christmas. They are counting on business owners, employees, merchants, restaurateurs, property owners, neighbors, and the UCLA community to simply not show up during the busiest time of the year.

But WE MUST SHOW UP. Silence is consent.

The city promotes "DINE L.A." and "SHOP L.A." But how do they expect people to dine and shop in Westwood Village, or patronize our historic movie theaters and wonderful cultural venues, if they cannot park here?

Our customers have many attractive and compelling choices: they can go to Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Culver City, Century City, the Westside Pavilion or ANYWHERE ELSE where there is convenient, free parking. It is beyond foolish!

Many of us are planning to go down to City Council to express our vehement opposition to this absurd plan. If you would like to arrange parking, please call Councilmember Koretz's office at (213) 473-7005.

If you would like to carpool with others, please contact me directly by email or phone (213) 448-8147.

NUMBERS COUNT! We must show the City Council that our entire Westwood community is united in our efforts to revitalize Westwood Village, and that we are unalterably opposed to this ill-advised scheme to give away our free parking.

Without our free public parking, the Village will not be competitive with surrounding shopping areas. Our customers will go elsewhere, and sales and tax revenue to the city will decline. "Penny wise and pound foolish". It is as simple as that.

It took our Westwood community nearly 40 years to work with the City to secure the land and amass the funds from our own Westwood Village parking meters to build the Broxton Garage and establish two-hour free parking in the Village. This was achieved thanks to the visionary leadership of our Councilmembers (Ed Edelman, Zev Yaroslavsky, Mike Feuer, and Jack Weiss), and with the support of our Westwood neighbors.

Now in a single vote the City Council proposes to take all that away.

Just as the residents of Whoville didn't let The Grinch Steal Christmas, we the members of the Westwood community will not stand idly by while the City tries to steal our free public parking...in our own Broxton Parking Garage that Westwood's customers paid for in the first place!

Thank you in advance for your immediate attention and critical support. I look forward to seeing your signed petitions (or online signatures), and hope you will join me and other members of our Westwood community at the City Council meeting this Tuesday, December 14th at 10:00 a.m.!

ON BEHALF OF THE WESTWOOD VILLAGE BUSINESS ASSOCIATION & THE WESTWOOD COMMUNITY COUNCIL,

STEVEN SANN
NINETHIRTY at the W Los Angeles - Westwood | The Backyard at the W Los Angeles - Westwood | Tengu - Westwood Village