AnonymousBy Anna Marie Gott
An open letter to the City Council of Santa Barbara:
Councilmembers,
The Hotel Californian would not have been approved if it had not agreed to build the public parking structure at E Mason and Helena and then permit the general public to park in it under the same terms as the City’s own public parking lots. Unfortunately, despite a legal requirement to do so and a year of reports, the Hotel Californian is still blocking the general public from parking in the parking structure to ensure its guests and visitors have preferential access to parking.
My question for the Council:
When will the Council say enough is enough and direct the City Attorney to take meaningful action that would ensure the Hotel Californian is prevented from excluding the general public from the public parking structure in favor of their guests and visitors to their hotel?
I first reported problems with the parking structure last summer and numerous times since. Nothing has changed.
How do I know? July 6th I watched drivers being flagged down by two valets. Drivers were told there was no available parking in the parking structure but they could “wait.”
The effect of making drivers “wait” ensured that some drivers would leave immediately which other others “waited” or left after “waiting” and being denied access. All while there were EMPTY parking spaces in the parking structure.
Interestingly the sign read: OPEN.
I walked over to the entrance of the parking structure to see if it was full or if there were empty spaces. Besides the empty handicaps spaces there were parking spaces available. (I took photos of the empty spaces.)
As I exited the parking structure a vehicle was “waiting” at the gate. The driver said the valet told him the parking lot was “full.” I told the couple about the free spaces I saw and what the hotel had done in the past. I asked the driver to call the attendant and told him what to say to get in.
The driver never got the chance to call the attendant at the Hotel Californian. One of the two valets “manning” the entrance of the parking structure to tell drivers to “wait” walked over.
The valet explained that the Hotel Californian’s parking structure was installed with an electric gate system that could NOT determine when the parking lot is full, or not, based on the number of vehicles that entered or exited. This left it necessary for the valets to stand at the entrance and tell drivers the lot was “full” and they “wait” in line to get in.
When I said there were open spaces the valet said they must have lost count because they were “busy.”
The driver permitted entrance.
The excuse given was certainly inventive, but it was simply a new excuse to go with the others the Hotel Californian valets and management have used when they’ve gotten caught “red handed” preventing the general public from parking in the parking structure.
The Hotel Californian has a long list of things it does to prevent the general public from accessing the public parking structure. They include:
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Rigging the touch screens to say the parking structure was for guests of Hotel Californian only,
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The touch screen fails to work until a valet comes to help and taps the same button you just tapped to get a ticket,
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The credit card machine won’t accept your credit card,
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Why is a credit card required to enter the parking structure?
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Call attendants tell drivers the parking structure is only for guests and visitors of the Hotel Californian,
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Valets standing at the entrance saying the “Open” sign was broken and the lot was “Full,”
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Valets and management saying the equipment was malfunctioning,
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“Lot Full” signs placed at the entrance to the parking structure,
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Cones placed at the entrance to block drivers from waiting to get into the parking structure.
Is the City Council done letting the Hotel Californian play its “parking games?” If the answer is “yes” please direct the City Attorney to take any legal action necessary to stop the Hotel Californian from preventing the general public from parking in the public parking structure when there are empty parking spaces inside.
If you want to weigh in on this issue email the City Council at SBCityCouncil@SantaBarbaraCA.
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City IS POORLY Managed. The reasons we have: parking issues, trash on sidewalks, vacation rentals in neighborhoods, homeless downtown, massive pension liabilities, over-evelopment or vacant stores, outrageous AUD rental housing costs with 0% available to those earning more than decent incomes and loopholes galore that let commercial development open with little to no parking is the City Administration and no-nothing Councilmemer’s. I can’t decide which is worse most days. The ones that try to get anything developed just to develop to get a feather in their cap or the Dummies elected or appointed who have no idea that what they are told at City Council meetings don’t reflect reality. We need full time Council Members with real experience and guts to say NO to out of town developers and who will overhaul the city. We need NEW management!
Go Anna Marie Go!
Anna Marie Gott should represent District 6 as SB City Council Member. All those who reside in District 6 please write in Anna Marie Gott’s name on your ballots this coming November, 2019. I am. “VOTE FOR ANNA MARIE GOTT FOR SANTA BARBARA CITY COUNCIL DISTRICT 6!”
I would love to see Anne Marie run for mayor of SB. She cares about issues big and small for RESIDENTS! Something I don’t think our current mayor really gives a crap about but that’s my own personal opinion.
SB Voters choose to subsidize corporate business with give aways including State St multi-million parking garages. WHY do locals pay to build and staff fgarages? The voting sheep majority love Gail Landis, DNC Chief and they do as ordered.. DNC Party Boss Gail Landis controls all but 2 on SB Council. Only Dominquez and Rowse can think and vote independently. Gail Landis has repeatedly published her orders for: housing, more tenant subsidized housing to their lesser neighbor,, free overnight parking for vehicle Dwellers, less public lot parking except for tourists, more free street parking, and fee increases passed by 51% versus 2/3 majority or 67%. Public defication, urnation, drug injecting, and formication are OK. Watch who you voters select this November! The DNC Slate.!! There will be 7 DNC puppets versus only 5 now. Council puts last SB local citizens , our vets, mentally ill, and elder homeless . Tourists and illegal migrants are Council priorities. SB will do everything possible for their favored identity groups. Fund & VOTE Gott and find us 5 more candidate who are not DNC. No More Controlled Desperados. Otherwise, give it up: move! Thanks Gott! 700 houses dropping in price.
I second Anna Marie Gott for Mayor 🙂
Congrats SB. You banned AirBnB – locals who rent out their own rooms/houses, so you could get this – corporations who take over your rights.
Did you mean fornication instead of formication. Fornication can be public problem. Formication is a personal problem.
Huh? Vacation rentals are regulated, far from banned.
Loopholes & NO Enforcement. City won’t keep or fund a functioning enforcement department. Documentation is lax. Work or business operations contine. Fines go unpaid. Little is fixed. It’s forgotten or “abated” and repeated. The result? More of the same. Businesses encroaching into neighborhoods. Noise. Lack of parking. Illegal construction. Tax evasion. Health and Safety issues… The city is messed up. Needs a total overhaul. Those DCC Dems (Murillo, Friedman, Harmon, Gutierrez and Jordan) won’t do a damn thing for residents. It will all be about pushing one bad decision after another for the rich, powerful and politically connected who fund their campaigns while they told crumbs to residents. Santa Barbara is in the grip of those who only care to strip Santa Barbara of it’s beauty and charm in order to enrich themselves. People need to get organized and revolt or all we love is lost.
False promises. Rigged system. Government giveaways. Santa Barbara is just as bad as Washington DC. Vote them all out. Recall the Mayor, Cathy Murillo!
This is an ongoing problem and I agree completely that something must be done. This was not a gift from City Council, there are stipulations that are being completely ignored. Get rid of the software that allows the gate to deny entry, regardless of “open” status. Let people go in and check for themselves if there is parking, with a 10min grace period without a fee (can’t remember if this lot has an initial free period or not).
Perhaps people should start calling the non-emergency police line when this PRIVATE company blocks PUBLIC access. If that sign says open, they must let the public in – period, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
JUL 15, 2019 10:02 AM. As a former member of Streets R Us, I can testify to the fact that more than a handful of people fought to keep lower State St. near Cabrillo Blvd from being narrowed to two lanes as it is now. Big Developer Money won the day. Let’s all hope there’s never a disaster or emergency that requires quick evacuation from East & West Beaches, Chase Palm Park and the pier.
Wrong. Private parking lot. Conditioned to allow for public parking. Also the City did not drop lanes for their set backs. There was no parking before on State. It was to improve and widen the public sidewalks. State Street is 2 lanes for a couple miles, north of Gutierrez, there is no need for 4 lanes. Those City people just did a huge study of the funk zone, and found as a result that there was plenty of parking if you know where to go. Gott lady is right about the problems with the lot, but she also loves fighting the City, and has way to much time on her hands. I wish she would spend more time on getting the price of craft beer cheaper for us locals!
Damn. Now I feel obliged to go and park there, just to see if anyone gives me any guff.
I am all for fairness but in reality, there is no parking shortage anywhere in SB. Honestly, if you cannot walk the extra block or two, you should have a disabled placard and thus have no problem finding something close by to your destination. Otherwise, find something more important to complain about whether you can park as close as possible to your chosen destination, whenever you want… This city sold out its soul and its citizens for cheap tourism dollars based on tax gifts and cheap labor years ago. They need the campaign donations and the tax revenue to pay for their gross mismanagement. So if you voted for any of the current batch of officials in office, especially Murillo, its on you. You were warned, but you chose party over principles and elected a wet noodle.
She would probably get 50 votes, the same number as Spot the dog would get.
Poor public relations from Californian Hotel – tell others and recommend spend money elsewhere. Loss of money might help them change their methods of operation.
Thank you for submitting this posting Anna.
Overall, compared to most cities, our looks and feels pretty good. Come on look at the big picture.
Made me giggle. You’re right. While public fornication might entertain some, hardly anyone is amused by stinkos.
Made me giggle. You’re right. While public fornication might entertain some, hardly anyone is amused by stinkos, not even other stinkos.
Fail to see how short term rentals doesn’t cause more parking problems on our local streets in addition to corporations taking over the parking garages. None of those short term rental people coming to party in SB drive cars?
I do miss the old Santa Barbara from what I do remember when I was 3 years old in 1959, 1960’s and 1970’s because of what our elected officials of the city and county did to this historic city and county. From the past to the present. They ruined it because of self interest and backing up the developers. And now hard working class and middle class families can no longer afford to live here. I do remember families like that.
this is ridiculous, why do you people even engage with them? I’ve used that lot 100 times and never had a problem. you guys voted for the current regime running santa barbara, you hate that state street is dead and the bums have taken over, but you also hate that the hotels are here to bring in tourists who can support the restaurants & shops. for the last 30 years that place was a dump without a parking garage at all. just be happy someone made it nice. at least the californian is just lame with the parking spaces, not like they’re throwing kids off a public beach or something truly worth freaking out about.
It’s not private property, it is a 100% public parking garage that the City has allowed the hotel to use on a first come first served basis.
I have parked at that facility probably more than twenty times and have never encountered any of those problems, except that the lot was full on one occasion. The claim of being able to see the parking area from the entrance also isn’t true. Same with having to use a credit card to enter, at least in all of my times parking there. And many of the assertions seem like tinfoil hat conspiracy theories, such as “rigging the touchscreen.”
Really? Finally, does it really seem all that unusual or suspicious that the lot would be full on a popular holiday weekend? I guess when all you look for is problems you can find them anywhere, even when they may not exist.