This past week, Q-line asked:
City Officials are considering raising parking rates at Downtown structures from $7 a day to $9 and the monthly rate from $82.50 to $121. Do you think the proposed rates are reasonable?
Here are your responses:
“The proposed increased rates are not reasonable and will just drive people away. The parking is free at Fox Hills Mall and that is where I have gone for several years now, to shop there in comfort … .”
“I certainly do not think the proposed rate hikes are reasonable. This city gets greedier and greedier. And it is infuriating that so much of these gouging fees and rate hikes go to the bums, freeloaders and low lifes in lots of various ways and still the city is filthy, crime ridden and bum ridden.”
“Once again the Bayside Corp. and city of Santa Monica conspire to scam the people to generate more income by raising parking rates. When will the scamming stop? Let me tell you when. Now that a federal judge in Seattle has ruled that the performer permit system is unconstitutional, it will be coming to the city of Santa Monica. That’s right people. The Bayside District and their scam they continue to perpetrate on the Santa Monica Promenade will be stopped. The people are speaking. Let’s rejoice. Power to the people.”
“They just raised parking fines to over $60 and now our crummy bureaucrats want to jack up parking rates that are already far too expensive. We have become … an expensive tourist trap thanks to being sold out by Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights. Our Downtown used to be a nice, friendly, neighborhood shopping center with mostly inexpensive, family-oriented shops and small stores owned by locals from our town. Now we’ve become a smelly, ritzy, Disneyland by the sea. When Target wanted to open in Downtown to offer a reasonable alternative to the expensive tourist crap, our silly council said no. They could care less about the people living here. They raise the water and garbage 20 percent and city fees and taxes go to the moon, yet they insult landlords with a 1 percent rent increase so they can get re-elected despite the horrible mess they’ve created.”
“I do not think the proposed rates are reasonable. They are totally unreasonable and they are going to kill business in Santa Monica, especially Downtown.”
“I don’t care what they charge or decide to charge, I don’t even drive into Downtown Santa Monica, let alone try to park.”
“I don’t think the structures should go to $9 a day and definitely not the monthly rate. Ask the people who have businesses down there if they think the rates should go up. If anything they think the rates should stay the same or go down. Remember folks, we are in a recession.”
“Everything else in this world is going up so of course the parking rates should go up. Up, up and away. I guess that’s the penalty one has to pay if one chooses to drive a car. I think people should use the bus. Now that I am disabled I do it all the time. So yes I definitely think the rates should be raised because everything else is going up.”
“Raising the parking rates is a bad idea. Some city officials seem to think raising rates will free up parking spaces and make more money. What happens is people will drive elsewhere. I have and others will, too. Santa Monica cannot support the coming high-end stores alone. There’s not going to be a mad rush from other cities to shop here. Tourists don’t need another reason not to come. Travel and leisure guides already mention urine, dirt, homelessness, panhandling, traffic and parking problems. City officials do not seem to have done their homework on other parking centers in the area, or have learned form mistakes such as the initial effects of high parking rates at Hollywood and Highland. No.”
“I think the proposed daily parking rates are too low. The city needs to stop subsidizing drivers with low-cost parking. Each new parking space costs $50,000 to build and would take over 15 years to pay back the investment if every parking space is charged the daily maximum of $9. Yes, sales tax offsets the cost, but no private developer would build a new parking structure at these rates. Why should the city do it at those rates?”
“Over 35 years ago the mall merchants paid for the Downtown parking structures. Most employees at the mall are sales people or food service workers. Not high-paying jobs. This fee increase does two things. It makes it impossible for those workers to drive a car to work, thereby forcing them to take the over-funded Big Blue Bus… . Next our City Hall comrades will institute a heavy fee for driving in the central business district, just like the English do in socialist London. Eventually our comrades will be forced to build more low-income housing for the mall workers. All mall parking should be free and parking ticket rates should be cut in half. And instead of a ridiculous parking czar, how about a pork-barrel-spending czar for City Hall bureaucracy.”
