Cal State Long Beach University Police removed signs prohibiting student parking in an adjacent neighborhood off Atherton Street Tuesday after realizing they were improperly placed.
“Those signs were put up by us as a means to kind of help get all the students to park on campus,” CSULB University Chief of Police Fernando Solorzano said. “[The signs] are to deter students from parking in the neighborhood streets … this was our effort to work with them and be a good neighbor.”
Solorzano said they removed the signs because the California Vehicle Code cited on them is unenforceable on residential streets by the City of Long Beach and University Police. He added that the signs are placed in nearby neighborhoods each semester, but are typically removed after the first few weeks anyway.
Superintendent Frank Ramirez of the City of Long Beach Parking Enforcement confirmed that the CVC cited on the parking signs is meant for city-owned lots and public property, not residential city streets.
Solorzano said that the signs were placed in the neighborhood at the request of Long Beach City Councilman Patrick O’Donnell.
O’Donnell said that his office asked the university to participate in helping alleviate the neighborhood from some of the CSULB congestion in response to a neighborhood petition brought to the city council.
“The restricted parking comes from the neighbors, not me,” O’Donnell said. “Certainly there’s a parking issue but some of the vehicles tend to spider their way through the neighborhood and neighbors have concerns about public safety when kids are moving pretty quickly through the neighborhoods.”
Solorzano also said University Police receive multiple complaints every semester from neighborhood residents about students blocking driveways and leaving trash in the streets.
“It’s a balance,” O’Donnell said. “When you live near a university, you have to accept some impacts but as a councilman I have to accept that I have to protect the neighborhood too.”