New RV Ordinance Targets Marina Lot

Sometime in the very near future, there will be new signs posted in the parking lot at Shoreline Park. They will say “No RV Parking.”

This will come as something of a blow to several people who park their RVs there routinely. One family even puts out potted flowers during the day. At night, these RVs roll out to Howe Road or other locations, because the city ordinance prohibits them from parking in the Marina lot overnight. But at the crack of dawn, they’re back, and they remain all day.

Every day.

Police Chief Gary Peterson told the that he was looking into revising the city’s ordinance regarding RV parking at the Marina, because the council feels that some people are taking advantage of the area, and the city’s hospitality, to more or less move into the Marina. The state of repair of these vehicles is not good – one of them is notorious for leaking fluids all over the lot, and since it parks in the same location every day, there’s probably a permanent stain where that RV used to be.

But Peterson isn’t eliminating the RVs completely – the revised ordinance will allow RVs to park in the lot by the boat launch for up to 14 days, at which point they have to relocate for six months before they can return.

To my way of thinking, this is a fair solution to a difficult problem. The parking lot and the Marina itself is not designed for RV camping. The folks living in them are staking a claim to a park. Parks aren’t designed to be lived in.

I think it’s time for the RV owners to find somewhere else to park these vehicles.

What do you think?

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1775 - King George III declares that the American colonies exist in a state of open and avowed rebellion.

1966 - Lunar Orbiter 1 takes the first photograph of Earth from orbit around the Moon.

1970 - Organized by Mexican American union leader César Chávez, the Salad Bowl strike, the largest farm worker strike in U.S. history, begins.

1996 - Osama bin Laden issues message entitled 'A declaration of war against the Americans occupying the land of the two holy places.'