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Home My WebLink About04/20/2004, - COMM i San Luis Obispo Chamber of Commerce 1039 Chorro Street • San Luis Obispo, California 93401-3278 (805) 781-2777 • FAX (805) 543-1255 9 TDD (805) 541-8416 David E. Garth, President/CEO 20 April,2004 Mayor Dave Romero and Members of the City Council City of San Luis Obispo 990 Palm St. San Luis Obispo, CA 93401 Dear Mayor Romero and Council Members: As part of its mandate to attract more visitors to San Luis Obispo,the Promotional Coordinating Committee has embraced the Chamber's concept of "Dressing the City"for tourists.Travelers with a choice are more likely to visit a physically attractive city than one that lacks visual appeal,and to spend more time there once they arrive.Thanks to the foresight of government and community leaders over the years San Luis Obispo has become a city of great charm,but there is room for improvement. The Chamber's Tourism Council, in formulating strategies for Dressing the City,has determined that one simple way to beautify San Luis Obispo is to upgrade the landscaping of median strips on major streets. It is along these streets that many visitors get their first glimpse of the city,and this first impression can have a powerful effect on how long they decide to stay—and how much money they ultimately spend—here. In recent years the city has followed a policy of planting street medians with drought-resistant native plants.Admirable in purpose,the policy is unintentionally detrimental to San Luis Obispo's appearance. Most of the species planted in the medians seem perhaps too natural,giving the landscaping a parched and ungroomed look.The result is not only unattractive but contrary to the city's leafy, immaculate character. The Board of Directors of the Chamber of Commerce asks that the Council consider amending the policy on median landscaping to allow for the use of greenery and flowering plants. This modest improvement could have a great impact on the ambiance of major streets,and would make the city more inviting to those passing through.The benefits would be twofold: visitors would be more likely to linger and patronize local businesses and residents would enjoy a better quality of life. The Board hopes that the Council will see the value of beautifying San Luis Obispo's street medians and will act to revise the city's landscaping policy. Reseuramurphy ectfully �iot y� f the Bo d e-mail: slochamber@slochamber.org • websites: www.slochamber.org www.visitsio.com r � I � I E �1 Page 1 of 1 C',_ Allen Settle - Mardi Gras A From: "Betty Schetzer" <schetzer@kcbx.net> To: "alien settle" <asettle@slocity.org> Date: 4/21/2004 1:28 PM Subject: Mardi Gras Allen, Quite a session. Maybe some real progress finally? I was prepared to wave my booklets from the Mission Plaza 10th anniversary as an example of how to have a constructive city party without.all the negatives, but decided that would be a distraction and not help move things along. It was interesting that several people used the "just because it CAN be done doesn't.mean it SHOULD be" argument. Maybe some of that reached those who need to understand responsibility. The council and staff are both impressive! file://C:\Documents%20and%2OSettings\slouser\Local%2OSettings\Temp\GW IOOOO1.HTM 4/22/2004 Lee Price-Letter for 4/20 Council Meeti- From: 'Jennifer" <jennifer070@earthlink.net> To: <Iprice@slocity.org> Date: 4/19/04 10:16PM Subject: Letter for 4/20 Council Meeting Please distribute to the Mayor and all City Council members as soon as possible (Tuesday), so that they can read it before the Council meeting. Thank you very much! Sincerely, Jennifer Robinson SLO Resident , ptAl 1 Dear Mayor and City Council, I am a resident of San Luis Obispo and I would like to strongly express my support for the canceling of Mardi Gras. Until a month ago I lived right downtown at Chor o and Pacific Sts. (I have since moved to about seven blocks from there.) During Mardi Gras, noise, alcohol-related behaviors, and general partying downtown were so out of control that I would have left town immediately and permanently right then if I could have afforded it. It was a nightmare. It was unbearably noisy - with "boom cars", cars revving their engines, helicopters, and noisy students, etc. disturbing the peace until all hours. I also felt trapped in my house, as I didn't feel it would be safe to even go as far as the post office with so many obviously drunk people cruising about the downtown area. As for the overall alcohol and partying problems in SLO, I think a very important statistic to look at in the report from the Chief of Police, is that there were 3,406 noise/partying complaints in 2003, yet there were only 238 citations. This is a great disparity. It may be valuable to review why it is that more parties or noise offenses weren't cited. Also relevant to consider is that when a resident calls the police to make a noise complaint about a specific location,that that is the only complaint counted. Even if twenty more people call to complain about the same party, or the same person calls back three more times, these complaints are not included in the statistic. So the statistic as it currently is would certainly seem to not show the whole picture. One more point to look at is that in studies done about noise issues, apparently only approximately 10% of people who are bothered by noise actually call the police and make a formal complaint. And from what I understand, when dealing with noise and partying issues, most people eventually either give up making formal complaints or move, as the problems continue to happen. This is even when they HAVE regularly been making the appropriate complaints. This is what happened in my circumstance. In any case,both of the above points would indicate that the situation here is significantly worse than one might think when looking at the number of"3,406" noise/partying complaints for 2003. I believe the solutions to this problem are several: 1)Enforce the noise ordinance and alcohol laws MUCH more strictly. Give citations and fines consistently. If thereareno serious consequences to out of control partying and disturbing the peace, students will just continue to do so. Noise and crime are very strongly related, so take noise issues much more seriously—especially concerning parties, nightclubs, and"boom cars", which are just hostile and aggressive "mini-parties" on wheels. The drivers of these "boom cars"consistently have been shown to be criminal in other ways, in addition to breaking the law by intentionally disturbing the peace. Note: If you'd like more information about this, I'd be happy to provide it for you. 2)Change the existing laws so that the penalties for alcohol and noise related offenses are MUCH more severe. Then make these potential penalties VERY well known to students, AND follow through on them. A climate in SLO needs to be created where students think twice and VERY seriously about getting drunk,partying and making a lot of noise. Students need to fear that there will be VERY serious consequences if and/or when they do break the law in these ways. Currently that is not the situation. 3)Do not allow any more bars to be opened up in town at all. We already have WAY too many on the whole, which just adds fuel to the partying "fire". There is a 600% concentration of bars in the downtown area. (Last fall I was informed by ABC that there should be only eight bars per the census tract, and at that time there were forty-nine.)All of these bars were granted alcohol licenses over the past number of years, and the granting of all of them was unopposed by the city or police department, except one. Per SLO PD Captain Dan Blanke, "the over-concentration of alcohol licenses in the Downtown (600%) contributes greatly to the over-concentration of calls for service." Why add to the problem by allowing any more bars? San Luis should have stopped allowing more bars many years ago, but the very least that could be done is to stop allowing more NOW. Now that I live further away from the core of downtown SLO, the noise and partying situation is much better for me personally. However, it is clear to me from having lived right in the thick of it for two years, that the situation overall has been consistently escalating, and is likely to continue to do so if not stopped. For what it's worth, I personally was not surprised when the Mardi Gras riot happened. It actually seemed quite able to be predicted, all things considered. So with or without Mardi Gras, the noise, alcohol and partying problems will continue to grow in quantity and severity- and spread to other neighborhoods not currently affected- if not VERY strongly cracked down on immediately. I hate to see the quality of life continue to deteriorate for all the good, respectful, and law-abiding residents of San Luis Obispo. So I sincerely hope that the City and SLO PD do whatever is necessary to reverse the dangerous trend of out-of-control behavior that has been escalating here for quite some time. Thank you very much for your consideration, Respectfully, Jennifer Robinson P.O. Box 15046 SLO, CA 93406 698-3824