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City Preps Residents to Defend Beach Parking Zones

By Jorge Casuso

On the surface, it seemed just another meeting of city staff and their constituents.

But with seven Ocean Park preferential parking zones on the line - all of them more than 10 years old -, Saturday's meeting at the Ken Edwards Center was anything but routine.

Instead of just providing information and listening to concerns, planning department staff helped coach and organize some three dozen residents for a crucial Coastal Commission meeting Tuesday morning.

After a year's delay, the commission finally will decide the fate of 936 preferential parking spaces south of Pico Boulevard and east of Lincoln Boulevard that were created by the city without commission approval between 1983 and 1989. The commission discovered the spaces in 1998, while considering the Edgemar Development project on Main Street.

"Don't be exclusionary," Planning Director Suzanne Frick advised the residents. "What is important is to put a face on this issue. We don't want to alienate this commission."

Among the key points city staff encouraged residents to make are the dearth of street parking, the availability of parking in beach lots and the make up of the community (it is not just rich homeowners).

Residents who spoke at Saturday's meeting said they feared that if preferential parking is revoked they wouldn't be able to move their cars or entertain guests, especially on weekends, because there will often be nowhere to park near their homes.

"I can't leave during the day, but there are empty spaces on the beach," said one resident who lives in a zone near Main Street with no daytime restrictions. "As usual, the residents are going to be caught in the middle of this squabble."

While there are 2,400 spaces in Ocean Park's two beach lots, it costs $7 to park ($6 during the winter.) By comparison, unrestricted street parking is free.

Frick, however, warned against bringing up the underused lot, saying that lowering the rates - which already are cheaper than the rates at Venice Beach and Will Rogers State Park - is not on the table.

She did encourage residents who blamed the parking woes not on beach goers, but on employees and customers of Main Street businesses, to speak out on Tuesday.

"It's a major impact," said Roger Genser, a 22-year resident of Ocean Park who helped organize the first Ocean Park zone in 1983. "It was a reaction against Main Street. It had nothing to do with beach parking."

Tuesday's decision will center on whether Santa Monica's zones restrict access to the beach, which the Coastal Commission was created in 1976 to protect.

Commission staff has recommended that the seven zones be retained - with the caveat that the city must reapply for the permits in three years. The city opposes that condition, saying it would be too costly, inhibit long-range planning and leave residents in limbo. Instead city staff is proposing to conduct a parking monitoring program and file a report within five years.

Commission staff also is requiring the city to create 154 spaces to help replenish those taken up by preferential parking. Of these, 65 already have been created. The city also must keep the Tide and Pier beach shuttles running during the summer months.

While Coastal Commission staff seems sympathetic to the plight of beach area residents, it is impossible to predict what the commission will do, Frick said. One warning sign was a complaint by a commissioner who visited the beach to watch the sunset and found no place to park.

"We've been discussing this with the staff for a year and a half," Frick said. "I think this really boils down to philosophical issues with the commission."

Although the city has been negotiating with commission staff, it also has made it clear that it is prepared to file a lawsuit if the commission revokes the zones.

"We have a difference of legal opinion as to whether the Coastal Commission even has authority," Frick said. "We would prefer to go through the process and have a positive outcome."

Since the Coastal Act was passed in 1976, the Coastal Commission has required cities to apply for permits for the special parking zones.

Historically, the Coastal Commission has granted permission for preferential parking zones in coastal communities, often imposing strict conditions to ensure plenty of public parking and beach access.

Since 1982 the commission has approved three applications from Hermosa Beach, Santa Cruz and Capitola. The commission, however, has denied preferential parking permits for Santa Monica's closest neighbors - Venice to the south and Pacific Palisades to the north.

In 1998 approximately 7.5 million visitors flocked to Santa Monica beaches. Over the past 28 years beach attendance has grown by 20 percent.

City Manager Susan McCarthy, who did not attend the meeting, said it would be "unforgivable" if residents weren't prepared given what's at stake.

"The Coastal Commission has a relatively clear mission laid out in the law, and in this situation, it may not be a mission that is sympathetic," McCarthy said. "This would certainly be a profound change."

The Coastal Commission will meet Tuesday at 10 a.m. at the Four Points Sheraton, 530 Pico Blvd.

Staff writer Teresa Rochester contributed to this report.

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Update: Cop Arrested for Posing as Hit-man Pleads Not Guilty

By Anne LaJeunesse

A Santa Monica police officer arrested in connection with a murder-for-hire scheme involving an ex-girlfriend, her friend and the targeted victim -- an auto repair shop owner -- pleaded not guilty Friday to charges of grand theft, receiving stolen property and conspiracy.

Officer Kenneth Maurice Scott, 41, of Carson, was ordered released in lieu of $100,000 bail, but must wear an electronic monitoring device so that his whereabouts can be tracked. A preliminary hearing in the matter is set for Feb. 29 in Beverly Hills Court.

Scott, also a member of the Santa Monica Police Department's award-winning basketball team, was arrested Beverly Hills Police on suspicion of grand theft for allegedly pretending to be a professional hit-man and for pocketing the $7,500 payment for the intended murder of an auto repairman.

Information about Scott's alleged involvement in the bizarre scheme, during which the intended victim was not hurt, was reported to Beverly Hills police by investigators in Santa Monica Police Department's Internal Criminal Division, according to authorities.

In late October, Santa Monica police were tipped off about criminal activity allegedly involving one of their off-duty officers. Members of the internal criminal division were assigned to develop corroborating information and it was later matched to an unreported grand theft in the city of Beverly Hills. Santa Monica investigators then contacted Beverly Hills detectives and the two agencies have cooperated on the case, according to authorities from both departments.

Scott has been a police officer in Santa Monica for three and one-half years and was assigned to the patrol division, said Santa Monica Police Department spokesman, Lt. Gary F. Gallinot.

Scott and his former girlfriend, Cynthia Lockhart, 43, are charged with one count each of conspiracy, grand theft and receiving stolen property. Sheila Holden Hamilton, 42, who allegedly elicited the murder-for-hire, is charged with one count each of solicitation of murder and grand theft, according to District Attorney's office spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons. The two women are expected to surrender to police soon.

The alleged murder plot centers around City National Bank in Beverly Hills, where bank employee Hamilton convinced an auto repair shop owner who had worked on her car to open a savings account, according to the District Attorney's office. After the man opened a $40,000 account, court documents state, Hamilton helped herself to $33,300 from it.

In an attempt to hide the embezzlement, authorities say, Hamilton confided to Lockhart, asking for help with finding a hit man to kill the auto repair shop owner.

According to court documents, Lockhart told Scott about Hamilton's request for a hit man, and Scott then called Hamilton, pretending to be a hired killer by the name of "Lorenzo Wright."

Hamilton eventually paid Scott, a.k.a. Wright, $7,500, which he and Lockhart shared, according to court documents.

However, after Hamilton mailed the death payment to Scott, the criminal complaint says, Scott called her, identified himself as a police officer and told her not to harm anyone or else "everyone" would go to jail.

The complaint lists Hamilton's victim as the repair shop owner, but in the conspiracy and grand theft charges against Scott and Lockhart, Hamilton herself is the named victim.

Additionally, Scott and his former love are charged with receiving stolen property, since the hit money reportedly was embezzled from the repair shop owner's bank account.

The complaint requests bail of $30,000 for Scott and $10,000 for Lockhart.

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