Received After Agenda Printed Regular
City Council Meeting 05-07-24
Item No. 16 Correspondence
City of Murrieta City Council April 15, 2024
Honorable Council Members,
On behalf of the 11 homeowners that reside on Dove Creek Court and Summer Creek Ln in the City of Murrieta, we respectfully request your approval of our unanimously supported placement of school day only restricted parking signs in our 2 block neighborhood. Our development is one block south of MVHS. For more than 6 years, up to 30 MVHS student drivers have parked in our neighborhood on school days. Ten of the 11 houses impracted are a part of the Gallery Estates HOA. This type of school day parking restriction signage is present in other neighborhoods, some with afternoon restricted hours as well.
We are very concerned for the safety of our families as student teenage drivers navigate our 2 block, no outlet neighborhood on a regular basis. There have been many close calls and an unnecessary level of caution we all have when leaving and returning to our neighborhood. It is statistically documented that teenage drivers are 4 times more likely to have accidents, likely higher in our case given the navigation around cars, parallel parking, 2 cul de sac turnarounds, and distracted driving with multiple student passengers in some vehicles.
MVHS has adequate on site parking available for these students. However, there is a nominal fee (lost revenue for MVHS) and vehicles are subject to being searched. These are the top two reasons for students parking in our neighborhood according to MVHS School Resource Officer, Carla Sanchez, who supports restricting students from parking in our neighborhood. Doing so will eliminate her need to patrol our neighborhood multiple times per week and have these students park in school parking lots, like the vast majority of students are doing. She indicated there are hardship funds for those students that are unable to afford the on-site school lot parking fees.
We did correspond with MVHS school principal, Ryan Tukua, who was responsible for Officer Sanchez's valuable assistance. Given that our streets allow public parking, they knew the City of Murrieta would have to agree to any parking restrictions
We accept the personal inconvenience parking restrictions will have on us and our required parking needs.
However, in addition to creating a safer neighborhood, we expect to eliminate long standing nuisances such as excessive speeding when turning around our 2 cul de sacs, loud car stereo music, loud exhausts, trash, foul language, congregating around vehicles, and illegal activities in parked vehicles. We also gain by having a clearer path for emergency vehicles, trash pickup, and regular street curb cleaning Being close to MVHS requires joint neighborly courtesy and comes with some minor trade-offs. However, safety concerns are not one of them and represents a considerable potential liability to the City of Murrieta and MVHS.
Sincerely,
Rob Carvey
Gallery Homes HOA Board Member
Murrieta, CA 92562/