When the Costa Mesa Planning Commission and City Council began
reworking an ordinance restricting recreational vehicle parking late
last year, resident Bill Folsom, who uses his RV as his only mode of
transportation, became involved to help the city craft the law.
Though that compromise has been reached, Folsom continues to attend
city meetings to assist the process on other issues, including a
proposal that would allow the city to dictate how homeowners use
their backyards.
On Friday, City Editor James Meier visited the city mechanic in
his RV as he ate lunch from nearby El Campion.
It didn't seem like you popped up on the radar as much in the
Daily Pilot until December, when the recreational vehicle issue came
up?
Yeah, it was after the first meeting, but I had been active in
this city, politically and on those issues -- even the RV issue years
ago when it surfaced a couple of times before and had people writing,
calling and showing up at the meetings. But this was the first time
the RV ordinance actually made it onto the agenda, so obviously we
had to be more public about it and organize people to speak at City
Council meetings.
What got me motivated this time was we didn't expect -- we knew
they were considering an ordinance -- they would discuss it until the
summer. When it came up, suddenly, in the middle of December -- when
everyone was on Christmas vacation -- a lot of people were mad
because the timing seemed to be when it would get less opposition. It
may have been pure coincidence, but that's what a lot of people
thought. And how restrictive it was really took a lot of people by
surprise.
Having discussed this problem in the past, most people were of the
opinion that it was a problem. We couldn't figure out what the real
problem was and why they couldn't enforce the current rules, as
difficult as it may be to enforce them. We knew there was a small
number of people complaining, but for the small number of complaints
and the extent of the problem, we thought that the ordinance they
were proposing was extremely restrictive.
And, as you saw, at that second meeting, I think we almost got 300
people to show up. The people you see who are the problem are just
such a minute part of the whole and the ordinance that they proposed
affected thousands of people negatively. And since there were
complaints from less than a tenth that amount of people, people were
bummed because it affected thousands of people and their families.
They were upset. They were very upset.
