Los Feliz Ledger [editorial]
[editorial]
A Tale of Two Kings
The Broken Meter Problem
by Joseph W. Lightfoot
By Daniel Schwartz
People are saying good things about King Middle School. But unless you’re talking specifically about the Magnet School it’s misleading to say things are going well there. In fact, if you speak to teachers in the “Home School” at King you’ll get an entirely different story. Walk into a Magnet classroom and you feel the energy. Talk with the Magnet teachers and their enthusiasm is palpable. Yet Home School teachers I’ve spoken with are frustrated and fatigued. In a Home School classroom the first thing you’ll notice is the crowd. Some have more than 40 students. The Home School teachers are saddled with paperwork, meetings, different levels of students in the same classrooms, having to change classrooms, discipline issues, broken copy machines, lack of resources for simple items like paper…the list goes on and on. Though Home School students, teachers, and parents are frustrated and discouraged by the disparities between the two schools, the point is not to pit the Home School against the Magnet; it‘s to create equity for all the children who attend King. Great schools are an essential part of a great community. All of our elementary schools—not just Ivanhoe and Franklin—are exciting places. They’re making our neighborhoods better. But we’ve abandoned the Middle School— except for the Magnet enclave. Everyone scatters after the 5th or 6th grade. The kids lose, and the community loses. The continuity that comes with being in the same group from elementary through high school benefits our children, our families, and the larger community. Many prospective King
parents, even those whose children might attend the Magnet, are worried their kids will be in danger: physically, socially and academically. Let’s address those fears honestly and directly. Some fears are groundless, but others have merit and deserve attention and action before parents will be comfortable sending their kids to King. This is a time of unprecedented demand for change in our schools and we should demand that the Home School at King be given the same privileges and resources as the Magnet. Then, all King students will have the same opportunity to excel, and none of us will have to worry that we’re hurting our kids by sending them to the neighborhood school. Take a chance and send your kids to King. Become involved. Nothing will change until the middle class takes responsibility and returns to the public schools. It has worked at the elementary and high schools. It can work in the middle school as well. It won’t be easy to accomplish, but our community and our kids will be much better off in the long run. Joe Lightfoot is the parent of an 8th grader in the Home School at T.S. King Middle School.
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Page 30 EDITORIAL / OPEN MIKE
Last Christmas Eve, I parked at the last available spot on the block of Hollywood Boulevard between Vermont Avenue and Rodney Drive. My 15-year-old daughter wanted to buy her mother a stocking-stuffer at Wacko. She popped a quarter in the meter—nothing; the display still read 0:00. Next, a dime. Still nothing. So she wrote a note: “Meter failed. Took money, showed no time.” I put it on my windshield. Twenty minutes later we came out to a $50 ticket tucked neatly next to her note. Maybe because it was her change; maybe because she wrote the note, the father in me had had enough. My first thought: the city took our cash and—because their equipment is shoddy and doesn’t work right—they want to penalize us further. The people who impose this on us are our employees. Enough. I paid for the right to park and shop there. I did my bit, my part of the social contract and I expect the city employees to do theirs. I pay for lots of city services I don’t use and now I have to spend my time proving I did the right thing because their equipment doesn’t work? I contested the citation by phone and called the offices of our local city council representatives: Eric Garcetti and Tom LaBonge. I wasn’t given much hope initially. My second call to LaBonge’s office revealed that he was introducing a motion to the City Council on the subject of failed meters. I asked for a meeting to see what I could do to help. It turned out the motion was only about getting LADOT to clarify their policy and encourage them to better communicate it. But I was invited to attend a committee meeting of the Council to
listen and speak. By then my contest of the ticket had been rejected. At this meeting I found myself seated next to Amir Sedadi, Asst. General Manager of LADOT for Parking Management and Regulations—the man at the center of the issue. And as always, once you put a human face on the devil, it’s hard to demonize anymore. Mr. Sedadi was sympathetic and seemed genuinely distressed that the system had failed someone so thoroughly. More importantly, he assured the councilmembers that official LADOT policy is NOT ticketing at failed meters. So there it is, official and on the record: at a failed meter it’s legal to park for as long as the posted signs specify. But there are still plenty of wrinkles. For instance, “my” meter failed without displaying “FAIL.” Or, more critically, the fact that many failed meters, sometimes mysteriously, right themselves. You park at a failed meter, perfectly legally doing the right thing and by the time the meter officer comes along, its no longer failed. LADOT’s answer to this problem is a hot line (877-2153958), a phone number that is posted on meters. (Failed meters can also be reported after the fact in its website.) But this is a problematic stopgap solution. Not everyone has immediate access to a cell phone or the Internet later, and because of that the assumption of equal access is intrinsically regressive and discriminatory. And as Mary Rodriguez, field deputy in LaBonge’s office recently found out—and which
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was reported in the Los Angeles Times—even if you call the hotline you can still be ticketed and LADOT might still stand behind their ticket. Los Angeles Transportation officials say the problems result largely from aging and outdated technology and that the new pay-station models, seen in other neighborhoods across town, address most of these issues. Time will tell. I hope I don’t sound too cynical when I say that while I believe these people are genuinely sincere, it seems too predictable for a city official to answer that the solution is more funding for their department. And, the city’s fiscal crisis makes it hard to believe that added funding is likely to occur. But plainly the technology is failing, so their argument seems legitimate. Finally, according to the LADOT, vandalism is problem one. The likeliest reason my meter on Christmas Eve failed was that it had been stuffed with something, preventing the coins from dropping. In light of these conditions, the change I’d most like to see is in the behavior of our local transportation officers. I want my daughter’s note read; I want it considered and I want it tested. Yes, it’s a huge city, but we’re a city of neighborhoods, and these folks have local beats they patrol. I think they might find themselves less frequently regarded as the enemy if they perform their jobs with a bit more engagement. And most of all: In a place where I’ve lived most of my life, I’d like our city employees to not presume that I’m a vandal or a thief. Daniel Schwartz is a current resident of Silver Lake.
April 2010