Establish Madera Gardens Parking Permit Program - YES

This was a painful one for me.

Last academic year, Redwood High School instituted a new policy—without consulting the Town of Corte Madera—preventing students who park their cars on campus from leaving campus at lunch.

The easily foreseeable result has been that students who want to drive to lunch spots off-campus began parking in the residential neighborhoods surrounding Redwood, including in Madera Gardens. Residents quickly found themselves unable to park in front of their own houses, their streets now flooded with high school students driving like... well, high school students.

After initial attempts to negotiate a policy solution with Redwood were disappointingly fruitless, and with residents growing increasingly frustrated, we took the only immediate step left to us: enacting a parking permit program on the affected streets (Birch Ave, Lakeside Dr, Cheyenne Way, Arrowhead Ln, Navajo Ln, and Apache Rd.), developed in conjunction with local residents and the Central Marin Police Authority.

I do not see this as an appropriate long-term solution to a problem caused by the school's new parking policy. As I stated from the dais before voting on this issue, I would not want a parking permit program in my neighborhood, which I believe is a hassle to residents and detrimental to the "small town" way of life that so many Corte Madera residents hold dear.

To that end, I will continue to push for a permanent solution that brings together all stakeholders to solve the underlying problem so residents can go back to parking in their own neighborhood without a permit.

I sympathize with the affected residents for the situation they have endured as well as the frustrating lack of an immediate policy solution, but I am grateful to them for their patience and understanding as we work to find a better solution, as evidenced by the support they expressed at tonight's meeting—much to my surprise—for this permit program.