Dear Editor – Parking Issues with Car Show

Dear Editor,

I attended the Culver City Council of May 7th and informed them that the Car Show Organizers had violated their Special Event Permit. The Car Show Event Operator was in attendance.

Excuses heard at last May 14th City Council Meeting: 1) The Event Operator needed more then a day or two to achieve conditions. Plain truth: They knew the conditions since April 25th. It was the same condition last year and they violated it. 2) It was just not on the City Council’s radar. Plain truth: The Car Show has been held the Saturday before Mother’s Day for 9 years. 3) They need a checklist. Plain truth: I thought the permit was a checklist with 45 items.

One of the conditions from this years permit: “PUBLIC NOTIFICATION: The Event Operator will release at his cost, a Public Announcement notice in the local newspaper, that includes a map, two weeks before the event, to run once each week, providing information, a map, and the notice that there is no car show parking in the residential community”.

An ad was never released even when brought to their attention beforehand. This was a direct violation of the Culver City Special Event Permit that was granted to the Culver City Exchange Club of Culver City by the City of Culver City’s Committee on Permits and Licenses! The Exchange Club knew the conditions of the permit on April 25, 2012.

This year the Car Show was in violation again with the failure to publish! As I said 2 Monday’s ago at the City Council meeting I brought it to the attention of the Exchange Club, City Council & the City Manager. Two Wednesday’s ago I brought it to the attention of the City of Culver City’s Committee on Permits and Licenses. May 10th, the ads that were published failed to “include a map” & “notice that there is no car show parking in the residential community”. Funny thing is they managed to post an ad in 2010. It would have been easy to recycle the map and notice in 2011 & 2012. They had recycled an article about a car from 2010 and reran it in 2011.

This is the plain, simple and easy to understand truth. Don’t be fouled by excuses.

The promoter further slapped the neighborhood in the face when he announced at the May 7th City Council Meeting that there was no parking in the residential neighborhood for the Car Show. The slap was he ONLY stated the street of Watseka Ave, which has one small apartment building, with ZERO non-metered street parking spots close-by. Cardiff, which has ZERO non-metered street parking spots and ZERO residents. Last he mentioned Ince Blvd, which only has non-metered spots nearly to Lucerne! The Culver City Downtown Neighborhood Association’s main area was blatantly ignored verbally and completely ignored in required newspaper notification. We were given the equivalent of Rockefeller Salute, by the promoter’s shameless and brazen disregard of their Special Event Permit.

Cary Anderson