Corpusfishing.com

[GinMan]

- "con paciencia y salivita un elefante se la metio a la hormiguita"
http://www.kiiitv.com/story/23539129/proposed-parking-lot-near-packery-channel-could-ban-beach-driving

http://www.kiiitv.com/story/23539129/proposed-parking-lot-near-packery-channel-could-ban-beach-driving[/urlhttp://www.kiiitv.com/story/23539129/proposed-parking-lot-near-packery-channel-could-ban-beach-driving[url]

[The Trash Heap]

GinMan, thanks for forwarding that "news" item in a PM. However, it's total garbled BS. Three years ago, the GLO changed its mind about allowing hard-surfaced PARKING on the beach, not driving on the beach, and told the City it should redesign and relocate the beach parking lots and handicapped ramps between them and the walkways atop the jetties. The GLO still enforces the TOBA regulations, which make it damned hard to close the beach to driving or parking vehicles on the beach, and requires a replacement of one parking space of off-beach parking for each 15 feet of obstruction to the public beach right-of-way. The Packery Channel's obstruction left the City with an obligation to build a parking lot at the south jetty with at least 140 spaces and another to build a lot with at least 47 spaces at the north jetty.

As you may already know, the City can't even propose to close the beach to vehicles permanently w/o putting that proposal before the voters and winning the approval of a majority. I know this because I co-wrote the City Charter amendment which requires that vote.

What came up at the City Council meeting a couple of weeks ago was the City Engineer's revelation that there were no plans to redesign the jetty lots and ramps to provide walkway access for another 4 years.

I don't have an account with KIII-TV, nor a cell phone from which to text the TV channel, so I used a link in its website to send a message to tell them what I've told you about their bogus report. No reply.
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The Trash Heap Has Spoken!
NNYYAAAHH!!!

[The Trash Heap]

Some of you may have noticed I've been actively blogging on the Caller-Times website, using the Destination Bayfront LTTEs and other articles as segue-ways to urge the City to finish the Packery Channel jetty parking and ramps. The latest in this attempt appears in the online comments that followed Johnny Cotten's forum piece this morning. See http://www.caller.com/news/2013/sep/27/forum-separating-destination-bayfront-from/#comments

I've tried unsuccessfully to get C-T writers, including David Sikes, to investigate and write about the lack of the promised jetty access, and got no reply from the editors when I submitted a forum piece on the topic. Yesterday, I sent a message to the Channel 10 Troubleshooter line, but got no reply. When I first saw GinMan's PM, I thought maybe KIII was picking up the issue, but, as you can see, that report was disinformation.

The City Council, the Watershore Beach Advisory Committee, and the news media are all stonewalling like the three monkeys. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, to get the City to quit stalling, one or more handicapped fishers need to threaten to sue under the ADA.
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The Trash Heap Has Spoken!
NNYYAAAHH!!!

[The Trash Heap]

Guessing from the lack of comments, I haven't completely explained why everyone, not just the handicapped, has a dog in the fight to get the jetty parks built. The parks are supposed to have free parking, showers and restrooms, too.

The jetty parking lots were originally shown in 2001-2002 City Engineering Department drawings to be on and parallel to the beach, similar to the parking lot at Bob Hall Pier. Also like to the BHP lot, because they would have to facilitate wheelchair access, they must be hard surfaced. A little over 3 years ago, after such structures were destroyed by storms on the north coast, the GLO told the City to redesign and relocate the lots off the beach, but the City did neither. There was some discussion of making an exception for a few temporary hard-surfaced spaces on the beach at the foot of the associated handicapped ramps leading to the jetty walkways, but nothing ever came of that alternative, either.

The only way I see to accommodate the GLO, the TOBA, the ADA and the City Code is to redesign the two parking lots, totaling at least 47 spaces on the north and 140 spaces on the south, by rotating them 90 degrees, and then by relocating them off the beach and onto sites adjacent to the channel at the foot of each jetty. In about an hour I did a little cutting and pasting to one of the old engineering drawings, found the parking lots fit neatly into those areas, and sent the results to the City and the GLO. Why the City engineering department would need 3 years to do the same desk-top analysis, much less another 4 years to arrive at a final design, beggars the imagination. The lame excuse given the public is that the ADA access is part of Phase 7, the Packery Project phase given last priority for construction. I say lame because there's no explanation of who set the priorities, nor why, and the City could easily have issued the bonds for the jetty parking lots, ADA ramps, and bathhouses at the same time it issued them to pay for those amenities at the seawall. There were in fact no development phases assigned to any the Packery Project recreational amenities when the City posted them on its website in March 2001 (Thanks again, Rudy, for finding that out) just before the April 7, 2001 election approving the TIF bonds to pay for them. Tapping the TIF directly, thus requiring phased development, was a scheme hatched only after enough TIF bonds were issued to pay off the Corps and to pay for the seawall amenities. The delay in completing the jetty parks was therefore entirely avoidable had the City simply stuck to the 2001 plan the voters approved for funding the Project all at once.

My latest relevant comments on a Caller-Times LTTE appear at:
http://www.caller.com/news/2013/sep/28/letter-to-the-editor-the-proposed-destination/#comments Just so I don't continue to feel like the Lone Ranger, how about some of you who fish the jetties regularly jumping on the bandwagon? It would be best if you wrote a few LTTEs on the topic of making the jetty parks the City's priority, not its last, but you can also piggy-back on convenient targets of opportunity like yesterday's forum piece and today's LTTE.

In case you're wondering, I can't get another LTTE of my own published right away because it's been less than a month since my last one, and nothing came of the forum piece I submitted more recently. Hey, Tyler, why don't you write something for the Op-Ed Page? You don't even have to bad-mouth Destination Bayfront, just tell the City to stop stalling, issue the TIF bonds now, and build the off-beach jetty parking, ramps and bathhouses immediately.
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The Trash Heap Has Spoken!
NNYYAAAHH!!!