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Menlo Park’s police department brings us the final word on overnight holiday parking (we hope): Enforcement will be relaxed, but only for a few days.
People can park on Menlo Park streets without fear of getting cited on the nights of Dec. 24, Dec. 25, Dec. 31 and Jan. 1, according to police.
That’s not as lenient as the usual two-week period sans enforcement, but it’s better than total enforcement. Police spokeswoman Nicole Acker had previously told us that the city’s standing ban on overnight parking would not be lifted at all during the holidays.
For more information, call the police department at 330-6308.
Well, it is better than nothing, now we can have overnight guests, without calling a taxi or fear of getting arrested for DUI, even when they don’t overindulged. Because these days, it doesn’t take much for it to read higher than the BAC 0.08% limit.
I’m wondering if this change in parking “holidays from fines” — in both downtown parking and now overnight parking, is due to the fact that our City’s budget is estimated to be at least $1.1 M in the red this coming fiscal year. And, don’t forget, due to an accounting “oversight” of not allowing for $400,000 in pay outs (in unsed vacation and sick leave) to those who have retired from the City work force, this present year’s City budget is now in the red.
My guess is that parking enforcement and ticketing (including the red light camera fines of $400 plus each) will be intensifying. I don’t know why anyone is willing to shop in Menlo Park this holiday season when there is unlimited parking other places.
Overnight parking is allowed downtown, year-round, except in the Draeger’s parking lot. You or your guest just need to retrieve the car the next morning before ticketing starts up again (check the signs to see when enforcement starts).
You can get overnight parking passes from the Police, and use them any time.
The whole parking ban is ridiculous. If they are trying to make some money why not sell annual overnight permits.
When Steve Schmidt was one the council, he tried to overturn it, and the council chambers were flooded with people claiming that there would be crime and mayhem if people were allowed to park on the street overnight. Apparently, there’s a very vocal segment of the population that really likes the ban. Steve got no support from fellow council members, and the ban is still in place.
The over night restriction on no street parking is one of the few great laws we have in this city. It should not be thrown out.
What is really irritating these days is the whole attitude of the Menlo Park Police force, apparently with a new agenda to increase their revenues.
Have coffee downtown daytime, and note how many officers are hiding around street corners in cars or on motorcycles, waiting to get someone rolling through a stop sign. Now endowed with fully filled positions and their new “Cadillac” salary contract, they seem intent upon making sure enough funds will be there to pay them.
The traffic fines dollars from the red light automated ticket issuing robots, go to the police department.
The police should not be hiding waiting to grab someone and pin a fine on them. They should in full view, where their presence will be noted, and the motorists will obey the laws. Its just plain bad policy to carry on the way they current do.
Note also, we were promised great benefits from the new police contract. Lower crime and better citizen safety were promised. They haven’t resulted. Crime is up, we are worse off than before.
Yet we have plenty of officers and we certainly don’t have any problems getting more with the wages they get here, along with their outrageous retirement benefits.
Now we have a new policy of not allowing overnight on street parking during the holiday season. Another way to increase their revenues. We need new leadership in the department and quite frankly in the City; this has all occurred under the present City manager, Glen Rojas.
I copy below the article on the over night parking just printed in the PA Daily.
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“BY JESSICA BERNSTEINWAX
Daily NewsStaff Writer
Menlo Park has historically given residents a break on overnight parking enforcement during the holidays so visiting family members and friends won’t get slapped with tickets while sipping egg nog or gathering round the yule log.
But this year police decided to eliminate the customary two-week reprieve, angering some residents. Unlike many neighboring cities, Menlo Park bans overnight street parking of vehicles without permits.
“One might assume that someone thought that this would bring in additional revenue either by forcing people to visit the department and purchase parking permits, or ticketing those not aware that there was no amnesty during the holiday as in past years,” resident Bill Wallau said in a letter to the police department earlier this month.
On Thursday, police changed course again, saying there would be no enforcement Dec. 24 through Dec. 26 and from Dec. 31 through Jan. 2.
Menlo Park police Sgt. Sharon Kaufman said she believed the department added those days because its overnight parking officers would be on vacation then.
The department decided to do away with the reprieve in part because of the availability of one- and two-day parking permits, she said.
“We have a permitting process that allows people to get one day, two days, whatever permits they need here … 24/7, so there’s no reason to relax it,” Kaufman said. “It makes it that much easier for people to park on the street.”
But Wallau, an 82-year-old resident and superintendent of a condominium complex at 20 Willow Road, said the shorter amnesty period wasn’t good enough.
“Doing it on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day doesn’t mean anything — people come to visit for a week,” Wallau said Friday. “It’s a way for them to get revenues, but I think it’s a very poor choice. It’s a really Scrooge deal.”
One-night parking permits cost $2 and are available at the Menlo Park police station, 701 Laurel St., or on the department’s Web site at http://www.menloparkpolice.org/parking.html.
E-mail Jessica Bernstein-Wax at jbernstein@dailynewsgroup.com.
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Pardon the many capital letters in the following reply.
This issue touches a nerve with be because it deals with TRUTH and honesty in government.
So WHY not enforce the night parking ban on XMAS this year???
It looks to me like the police department is being CHICKEN and EVASIVE in deliberately AVOIDING issuing tickets with a date of Dec 24–DEC 25 ??
I mean come on police — If the night parking ban is such a GOOD–POSITIVE idea , PLEASE PLEASE have the courage to issue XMAS parking tickets on DEC 24 — DEC 25.
Can we please ONCE and FOR ALL END this parking ticket hypocraisy for GOOD.
The ONLY ONLY thing that this parking regulation DIRECTLY accomplishes is to impose a night POPULATION CAP in the city of Menlo Park.
It has NOTHING–NOTHING whatsoever to do with any sort of crime issue. If it was such a good idea a very large majority of California cities would also have similar bans which they do NOT
WHY– WHY cant Menlo Park residents also be treated with the same xmas CONSIDERATION in May–June–July etc!!
REAL–REAL christmas spirit lasts 365 days a year (all year) .
Thank you all for reading my thoughts on this very important issue.
If the city only allows overnight parking on Christmas and New Years then it is showing a religious preference by not allowing it on the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, Kwanzaa, Hannukah, Islamic New Year, Rosh Hashana,and Diwali (Hindu festival of lights).
Religious discrimination is against the law.
Parking restrictions from 2 AM to 5 AM is so Menlo Park. This rule harkens back to the anti-commune attitude of the early 1970s and it has no relevance today. Is it a source of revenue to the city? If its an anti-crime strategy, residents could pay an annual fee for parking permits as San Francisco issues. Those fees could replace the revenue from the parking tickets. Menlo Park should not foster this elitist 40 year old law. The City Council can and should throw this ordinance out. It is almost 2010!
And why not ask Steve Schmitt to lead this fight?
When I lived in Menlo Park for a year and people asked me what the town was like, I always told them about the parking ban.
Despite the fact that I am a responsible professional (Stanford postdoc) and a law-abiding citizen, I could tell that I, too, was “the wrong sort of person” — and so I left town.
This just seems so sad. What the hell is Menlo Park so afraid of?
I think the whole paying for parking thing is ridiculous. When friends from LA come to visit they cannot believe that such an ordinance exists. Maybe in Palo Alto, but in Menlo Park? The ordinance didn’t keep my car window from being smashed by a huge rock this year. How about the police concentrate on the crime spree in parts of MP rather than on checking for permits on car windows in the middle of the night?