[SBB] Parking Access at Mt. Hamilton and San Antonio Valley

["Matthew O'Brien" <[[email protected]]>]

Due to the volume of posts that I've seen regarding the issues of parking at Smith Creek and Al's post on legal issues, I decided to post this non-bird message to make others aware of the process of which I'm in the midst.

I will keep this brief and ask those with further interest to contact me at [[email protected]].

Briefly, when birding in mid-February in the San Antonio Valley, I was accosted by the UC Santa Cruz police officer from Lick Observatory ,who told me that I could not park alongside the roadway anywhere in the San Antonio Valley.  We were not on UC property, we were near the corrals at the A to Z Ranch. 

The officer told me it was "Illegal to park alongside any California state highway unless it is posted that parking is allowed."  When I returned home, I researched the state statutes and found that his statement was entirely NOT correct.  (To boot, the road on the east side of Mt. Hamilton is a county road, not a state highway.)

When I complained to the officer's superior at UCSC that he was enforcing laws that didn't exist, she changed the reason for the officer's action, and told me that it was illegal to "Park on ANY Santa Clara County road unless it was posted to allow parking".  When I phoned the county Sheriff's office, they referred me to the patrol officer for that area who echoed the "against county ordinance" line.

As I was incredulous that one could not park alongside ANY county road...

...I then contacted Don Gage, the SC County Supervisor for all unincorporated areas.  His staff was excellent (many thanks) and they got the Santa Clara County District Attorney's office to issue me a formal, written finding that BOTH claims by the UCSC PD were erroneous.  They also added that they had contacted both the departments at the county and UCSC to set them straight.

In the lengthy conversation that I had with the county deputy, he pretty much admitted that he worked with UCSC to keep anyone from parking alongside the roads, as they had found that quite a bit of crime came from parked cars.  It appears to me that the officers think that enforcing parking regulations that do not exist is worth the deterrence to crime it may present.

I am still awaiting word from UCSC as to why their police department was either so poorly knowledgeable, or perhaps willfully citing non-existent laws.
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