Students who fraudulently use handicap placards for convenient
parking are being chastised once again. But this time the criticism
isn’t coming from the university.
At the annual meeting of the Holmby-Westwood Homeowners
Association, L.A. City Councilman Jack Weiss said he is working
with the Department of Transportation to conduct “sting
operations” against students who misuse handicapped placards
and park in the Holmby Hills area, adjacent to Hilgard Avenue and
the east side of the campus.
Weiss said the department has been conducting sweeps and issuing
tickets, and will continue to monitor what he calls “an
ongoing problem.”
Many of the sixty or so in attendance applauded the
announcement.
“If you drive Westholme and Wyton … you will see
handicap placards on every single car,” said Sandy Brown,
president of the association. “There is no reason to park on
our streets unless you are visiting a resident.”
Weiss mentioned that he goes jogging through the Holmby Hills
area and has noticed the abuses himself. One resident yelled out
that “illegal parking is blatant … we can’t even have
guests.”
For the most part, parking on the streets of the affluent Holmby
Hills are restricted to those with a resident or guest permit,
which the homeowner must purchases through the Department of
Transportation. But, in accordance with the Americans with
Disabilities Act, those who legitimately have handicapped placards
can park on streets requiring permits.
According to the Holmby Hills newsletter, since October 2002 the
Department of Transportation has cited 11 people for abusing
handicapped placards.
Brown believes it is too easy to get the placards as abuses seem
rampant.
“Part of the problem is the disabled community is never
willing to police themselves,” Brown said. “They have
to go to the DMV and see how these placards are issued; are they
issuing them to people who should not have them?”
The misuse of handicapped parking placards has been a persistent
problem on campus as well. In 2002, the university police cited 29
students for illegally using handicapped placards.
Fines are expensive, usually over $500.
Last year Parking Services posted signs in university parking
lots encouraging those who witness misuse of the placards to make a
report with a hotline set up in 2000 specifically for the
problem.
However, the university has no jurisdiction off campus.
Several other topics were discussed at the meeting, ranging from
traffic issues and sidewalk repair, to preventing more high-rise
construction on the Wilshire corridor.
Weiss, who represents L.A. County’s 5th district, which
includes Westwood, said he is also lobbying the City Council to
work on ensuring Los Angeles is prepared for the threat of
terrorism.
“Americans seem to have forgotten about the threat of
terrorists, but the terrorists haven’t forgotten about
America,” Weiss said.
Weiss did not elaborate on what preparations needed to be made
nor what his recommendations are.