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Sale of Westwood’s last free parking structure on hold as conditions of a deal shift

By Golmah Zarinkhou and Daniel Schonhaut

Feb. 15, 2011 1:30 a.m.

Moving forward with plans to sell the only free parking garage in Westwood to private interests, Los Angeles politicians have run into a problem: They can’t find any buyers.

This could be because the city had agreed to sell the garage, along with eight others in LA, under likely conditions that parking fees would not be raised for a certain period of time.

Now, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has proposed offering the garages with no strings attached, according to a letter he sent to the City Council. By selling the garages, the mayor hopes to bridge a $53 million deficit that has been a thorn in the city’s side.

Westwood residents have objected strongly to the mayor’s proposal, fearing the era of free parking in the neighborhood may now soon come to an end.

If this happens, shoppers could be further driven away from Westwood and toward other business districts, like Ackerman Union and Santa Monica, said Toni Gray, vice president of the Westwood Neighborhood Council.

“There’s no business if there isn’t parking,” said Laura Lake, co-president of Save Westwood Village, a business-community alliance.

Lake said Save Westwood Village is considering filing a lawsuit against the city, on grounds that eliminating free parking will endanger a historic neighborhood.

She said control of Westwood parking should be shifted to the newly forming business improvement district, which would consist of Westwood businesses that are willing to pay additional taxes to help fund local services.

Steve Sann, chair of the Westwood Community Council, said rather than selling public parking garages, the city should consider reducing labor costs as a means of balancing the budget.

Sann said he believes labor contracts for city employees, including pension and medical care, are unsustainably high.

Lisa Chapman, who sits on the board of the Westwood Neighborhood Council and works in the UCLA Medical Center, said she is fed up with the city’s secretive approach to the issue.

“We’re hopeful (the garages are not sold), but we don’t know what will happen,” she said. “It’s been a frustrating, long road for us.”

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