This picture was taken Saturday on Waterway Blvd.  This is the bike path all the kids use to go to the marina to get ice cream.

The warming weather will soon lead to the path being occupied for blocks.  Somehow, after 6 years of study, City Council just could not figure out what to do about overflow parking at the marina.

Now, of course, none of this overflow parking is from vehicles and trailers of IOP residents.  Residents, Shchmedisents!  Gotta take care of all those who don’t live here first.  More on this idea in a post to follow.

If you enlarge the above picture and look closely you will see that IOP has partially granted the wishes of the citizens of 52nd Avenue, citizens who seem to have aspired to forming their own city.  (See the previous post on their lawsuit with the City of IOP.)

No daytripper (aka The Unwashed Masses) parking is permitted on the street.  At least during the busy summer hours.  Residents with a proper rear window decal will be permitted to park in the easement, but my best guess is that if anyone tries this, you will see more fiberglass poles placed in the easement to prevent parking.  For the record, this is much less expensive and environmentally friendly than the “Jim Owens Method.”

This is where you run your sprinkler all day to keep the cars out the easement.  He had the sprinkler going this past weekend.  Despite my distaste for the tactic, I have to give him this:  It works great!  He is not the Mayor of Palm Blvd for nothing.

As I am sure you have noticed, the island is now populated by more litter on a stick.  This sign can be found on every street corner on the island.

And you know what?  I’m ok with it.  Council just spent 6 years coming up with a parking plan.  Six Years!  Why did it take so long?  Because they truly were trying to find the Holy Grail.  That is, a plan that would work and that would not offend anyone.  If you think this is easy, you need to run for office.

And all the complaining you are now hearing about the signs is exactly why no one runs for office.  The last 2 elections have been uncontested.  Despite the huge amount of hard work council put into this, a vocal minority wants to find the one perceived problem and pile on.

Remember, this plan is not carved in stone.  What many many people said about parking was, “Just do something, anything.  If there are problems, changes can be made.”  Sounds pretty reasonable to me.

Well, Sandy “Fiscal” Ferencz started to complain about all the signs.  She was able to lure Jimmy Ward and JimDaddy Carroll onto her cause.  So, at this point the plan is all set and ready to go.  And, oh yes, already paid for.

But wait, what about all these signs?  Well, they have been in the plan all along.  But if you read councilmembers’ comments in the newspaper and on social media they seem to claim they did not know there would be so many signs.  Mayor Cronin told them the plans have been available all along.  Hmmm.  So, let me get this straight.  Council does not even know what is going on.  Is it any wonder that the average citizen is totally in the dark?

See my earlier postings on the non-transparency of city government and how it could easily be fixed.

But, back to the issue at hand.  Someone got the brilliant idea of starting a petition drive to get the signs removed.  By methods unbeknownst to me, JimDaddy nabbed Jeff Evans, and got him to go door to door.  JimDaddy took the easier route and said if you were interested in signing the petition he had a copy in his office!

Having been involved in a huge petition drive I can tell you this:  If the signer has to come to you, you ain’t gonna get many signatures!  To mount a successful petition drive requires a large number of committed people and a lot of time.

All of which tells me this drive is going nowhere and it is probably already over.  Which is good.  If you are going to put effort into a petition drive you need to make sure it is for something really important, like monster mini-hotels taking over the island in the areas zoned for residential living.

A petition drive to get some signs removed is just not worth the effort.  And as Mayor Cronin noted, if it proves the signs are too much or not necessary, council can look at taking them down.

Thank goodness for the adult, clear thinker in the room.

The Post and Courier reported this week that IOP has been approached by an out of state company interested in possibly building a parking garage for beach visitors.

Any mention of a parking garage in the past has been dismissed in a nanosecond by virtually every resident of the IOP.

But think about this for 2 nanoseconds:  Would you be in favor of such a building if it eliminated all other daytripper parking on the island?

I don’t know if that is feasible, lawful, whatever.  But if it could be done, well, what would you think then?

IOP held a very informative expo at the Rec Center on Dec 3.  City administration was present to answer questions as was our city attorney.  Most of the city councilmembers were there and available for chatting.  A shout out to Councilmember Bettelli who backed parking on the “sacred” Ocean Blvd.

Look at the map below:

Streets in red are for beach parking by anyone.  Streets in green require a residential permit to park in the easement.

But, look closely.  There are some streets that are white.  For example, a good long stretch of Waterway leading up to the marina.  Who can park there?

Anyone!

The IOP Marina, bought and paid for by the citizens of IOP needs to make sure they have tons of parking to service all those people who do not live here.

Not only does a property we bought and own charge us to launch our boats, they actively encourage off island residents to come here and generate more traffic.

It just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.  How about you?

The city will unveil the new parking plan on Thursday, Dec 3 at 5:30 pm at the Rec Center.

Will questions from the audience be taken and answered?

If yes, will someone ask why and when Ocean Blvd had sacred status bestowed on it?

If there is only parking permitted on the cross streets to Ocean Blvd, why can’t the same thing be done on Palm Blvd?  A simple question that has never been answered.