Some RV dwellers in Palo Alto receive warnings they may be towed.
Mayor DuBois not sure about the ‘sudden concern’ over warnings
PALO ALTO >> Several RV dwellers in Palo Alto parked on El Camino Real have received notices from the Police Department warning they could be towed as early as Wednesday if they do not move their vehicles.
The notices incensed local activists, who expressed their discontent to the City Council on Monday night.
Angie Evans, a member of the Palo Alto Renters Association, asked the council to order a stop to the tow warnings and show support for the dozens of people currently living in RVs and vehicles in the city.
A line of RVs and other vehicles parked along El Camino Real is hard to miss against the backdrop of Stanford University. For the past several months, people living along the busy ave
nue have had to play “musical parking spaces,” as they call it, moving from one spot on El Camino Real to another a few blocks away when they get a tow notice.
The tow notices have been picking up lately, though, said Mike Becker, who has been living on El Camino Real for about two months. He said he gets annoyed when every once in a while a tow notice forces him to move his car down the road.
“I have no problems with the police as long as I play the game,” he said. “I don’t want to cause any trouble so I just do it.”
Becker is one of dozens of people living inside vehicles in Palo Alto, a growing problem over the past several years that has prompted the City Council to enforce laws on the books to prevent oversized vehicles from parking somewhere too long.
Palo Alto police said in the notice that Becker’s vehicle was violating a city ordinance prohibiting abandoned vehicles on a roadway.
The city has a safe parking program that provides about 20 spots for RV dwellers to find a calm place to park and live temporarily, hooking them up with services and social workers.
But activists say what Palo Alto is doing — like other cities with similar policies — is forcing people to constantly be on the move. People living along El Camino Real described the almost ritualistic act of receiving the notice, moving their vehicle and waiting for another to come in a week or two.
Palo Alto resident Kevin Ma, who spoke during Monday’s council meeting, urged the council to place an emergency moratorium on tow warnings until a permanent solution is found.
“We shouldn’t be spending limited staff time driving people away during a pandemic,” Ma said. “The intent of these laws were to address abandoned vehicles, not to play musical parking spots with people already on the edges of our community. This is displacement during a pandemic.”
The city currently contracts out with two faith communities to provide eight parking spots and recently opened a new 12spot safe parking program with the county. Councilman Greg Tanaka said safe parking is key to dealing with the growing problem of RV dwellers parking for long periods of time on city streets.
Tanaka said it doesn’t matter whether it’s a boat, an RV or a car, people have to move their vehicles after a certain amount of time because it is public land. He said Palo Alto’s practice is in line with other cities across the Bay Area, and he argued the city is more inviting to RV dwellers than other communities like Mountain View, which he argues are pushing people to move to Palo Alto because of its restrictive stance.
Tanaka also pointed to the increasing backlash against vehicle dwellers. He pointed to a petition signed by 357 people called Squalor along El Camino in Palo Alto, which urges the city to enforce 72-hour parking rules for residential vans along El Camino Real.
The petition, created by a consortium of Palo Alto businesses along El Camino Real, says there are blocked sidewalks “making it dangerous for pedestrians and bikers.”
“There are numerous environmental hazards such as human waste and trash blocking the sidewalks and roadway,” the petition says. Tanaka said he agrees. “It’s dangerous,” Tanaka said of RVs parked along El Camino Real. “It’s dangerous for the campers. RVs are what they are because you can move them around. You can park somewhere for three days and then move it. It’s public property meant for the public to be able to use to move around.”
Mayor Tom DuBois said he was confused about why advocates are bringing up the issue now. The practice of having vehicle dwellers move every few days has been in place since 2018. He said that so far this year, police have given out tow warnings to about 450 vehicles, 16 of which received tickets after noncompliance and three of which were towed.
“The police generally don’t tow it, but you know if most of the time they go and there’s no one there, and they come back multiple times, they have to comply with the law,” DuBois said. “It doesn’t appear anything has changed. I’m not sure of the sudden concern.”