ACLU sues Palo Alto over ‘unconstitutional’ restrictions at residents-only park
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This park is in the hills, literally across the street from Los Altos Hills, and a windy drive or strenuous bike ride up the hill from most of Palo Alto.
The exclusionary ordinance is really aimed at these neighbors, rather than at the e.g. East Palo Alto residents who live ten miles away.
There's definitely a nasty history of racism in California, the Bay Area, and Palo Alto, but it's not quite accurate to attribute this particular ordinance on racist exclusionary policy. Los Altos Hills and Portola Valley are even more affluent and white than Palo Alto is...
After some time, those restrictions became legally unenforceable, and then over more time more and more of those restrictions have eased and now things are a lot more egalitarian on the surface, but the racial discrimination of the past has already done its harm and contributed to white wealth and black and brown poverty and now these neighborhoods maintain their racial disparities without having to have it encoded in law. So, having residents-only restrictions on parks are, intentionally or unintentionally or accidentally on purpose, a way of keeping people out of the park based on race, and thus, unconstitutional.
Hard to imagine how "free riding" a public park would work
Parks require upkeep. Parking lots and trails must be maintained. Litter must be picked up. Police are needed to evict anyone camping (you'd be surprised how often this happens in California). If you're a resident, your taxes pay for that upkeep. If you're a non-resident, you're free riding.
Banning non-residents is a dick move, but it's unclear how it's unconstitutional. Honestly, I think usage fees would benefit both sides. Non-residents could enjoy the park, and the city wouldn't have to worry about a potential burden on their budget.
How about the woman who owns the stationary shop mentioned in the article? Her business pays taxes to Palo Alto, but she can't use the park because she doesn't live there.
Here's another example: Non-resident immigrants can found companies in the US and pay taxes to the US government, but many of them can't even enter the country.
Again, I think this law is stupid and I'd love to see the city of Palo Alto change it. But I don't see how it's unconstitutional. As history has shown us, the US Constitution allows legislators to pass many, many stupid laws.
I've had many public library cards for libraries outside of my local city or county system; as long as you can document who you are and where you live so they can come after you at need, at least in CA as a CA resident, I've never has a problem.
That said: I would be happy if surrounding cities banned Palo Alto residents from their parks until the city of Palo Alto changed their rules.
1. https://www.cityofberkeley.info/rpp/
2. https://www.sfmta.com/permits/residential-parking-permits-rp...
It's absolutely not common for libraries or schools to restrict _access_ to non-residents. Public libraries don't check ID at the door. School grounds have visitor access protocols these days, but those protocols have nothing to do with residency of the visitor. School _studentship_, library _borrowing_, and roadside parking are constrained finite resources and therefore extremely different from walking across a threshold, which is neither finite nor constrained.
Private property rights have a disparate impact, and the endgame is to come after that. Take Harvard's going after final clubs; this is what they want for America.
Yes, if there are too many of them and they act irresponsibly.
>Should a city be able to decide whether non-residents can use its sidewalks, in order to make the city "nice"?
Yes
Are you willing to pay a fee to enter such a city, to offset the costs of your visit?
I did mean 'context' because without it, it's quite reasonable to ponder what could possibly be so bad or 'unconstitutional' about Palo Alto having its own version of Gramercy Park. Grody, but maybe not actually illegal?
With the context of 'policy-ied their way to creating an actual ghetto which went on to become the statistical Murder Capital, USA by 1992', one might think of it somewhat differently.
For example, for my wedding reception we rented a barn in a park that's often used for weddings and other events. Since my sister is a resident of the city she was able to rent the barn at a discount, while non-residents would have had to pay significantly more. Never crossed my mind that such a thing might be "discriminatory" or "unconstitutional." I've seen plenty of similar things with public pools, out of state hunting licenses, library cards, and much more.
"Public" doesn't mean "free access for all," and that's independent of any alleged racial discrimination claims the ACLU is making.
California doesn't charge out of state tourists extra to visit their state park system. That would be absurd, as it's a public park for public use. Not to mention that all public lands in the Bay Area are funded in part through state and federal funds.
It's definitely foreign to me when I can park my car for two weeks at a California state park for cheap, and backpack through half a dozen state and national parks, without hiking down to each ranger station and stuffing a $20 bill in the box.
Many states do in fact do this; I don't think it's so absurd (not saying I necessarily agree/disagree with the practice). Certainly, there's much less of an institutionalized-racism aspect with such boundaries at a state level, than a neighborhood/city level.
E.g. in Massachusetts: https://www.mass.gov/guides/parking-at-massachusetts-state-p...
What on earth do you think public means?
I don't see any inherent reason why it would be wrong to limit access to a public service or property to people who actually live in the jurisdiction that maintains it. the history of who lives in a particular jurisdiction and why is often sordid, but that's a separate issue.
Having seen the huge amounts of homeless drug addicts in parks all over (in San Diego, LA, SF, Seattle, and Salt Lake City from my personal experience, and I'm sure it's similar elsewhere) I can definitely understand the motivation behind trying to limit access to parks. Whether or not it's right to do is a different matter
There's literally a gate with a guardhouse (with a guard) at the park entrance on Page Mill Road. They don't let you in without proof that you live in PA. You could, of course, hop the fence further up on Page Mill...
As for a wedding: you're paying for semi-exclusive access to the park because a large wedding or other event may be depriving other park users access and/or may cause excess litter which needs to be removed at taxpayer expense. That residents receive a discount on special event fees just means that they have already partially payed the fees via taxes.
Which is not to say that Palo Alto is being reasonable here, just that there is a lot of precedent and I'm not clear on the distinction.
Another example: before Covid, my kid's school provided parking spots in school grounds for a nearby festival as a fundraiser.
And in many schools, events like science fairs are open to the public.
As for landfills, I'm not sure there's a distinction between residents and non-residents. AFAIK, they're treated in similar ways to preservation areas, where mostly everyone is forbidden from entering, except the people who are working there (and happen to live nearby by proxy)
Re: schools.. Many school grounds are not open to the public. Special events, perhaps, but you can't generally just wander in. In the odd circumstances you describe (journalists, parentally-designated temporary guardians), arrangements must be made in advance and can often be denied, or are on behalf of the resident.
Again, I'm just not sure where the line gets drawn. Parks are open space, and traditionally open to the public, but many other city-operated and -funded facilities are not.
You might conclude that the marginal operating expense of parks is not high enough for most towns to justify gatekeeping. But it's imaginable that some municipalities calculate expenses differently.
All of this is aside from PA's history of racial exclusion, which I know nothing about. Appearances matter too!
in my city you cannot do this unless you have a really good reason. the doors are steel and controlled from a central office. the administration may choose to let a journalist in if they feel it is beneficial to the school, but they can absolutely choose not to.
It still is similar to preservation areas, in that entry is restricted for some logistical reason rather than proof of residence.
[1] https://www.smcoe.org/for-families/appeals-and-transfers/vol...
Palo Alto[1]: 60.6% White, 27.0% Asian, 6.2% Latino, 1.8% Black, 0.2% Pacific Islander
East Palo Alto[2]: 64.5% Latino, 15.8% Black, 7.4% Pacific Islander, 6.2% White, 3.6% Asian
It comes across as a law that prevents Latino, Black, Pacific Islander people living in the area from visiting their local park.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Alto,_California#Demograp...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Palo_Alto,_California#Dem...
(This is a relatively recent effect, of course; the "residents only" limitations on the Foothills Park are much older.)
If it was owned by the city, restricting access would be different.
^^^^Appears incorrect. It’s city owned! Thanks for digging!!
If it's state property, then that's different.
> Most of the land for the park was bought from Russel V. Lee, a founder of the Palo Alto Medical Clinic (now Palo Alto Medical Foundation), who offered, in 1958, 1,294 acres of his land at $1,000 an acre ($1.3 million total) to the city to preserve as open space.[9] The total cost was high so Palo Alto put it to a citywide vote in 1959 which passed with 62% of the voters supporting buying the land.
"""In 1959—at a time when the discriminatory practices described above were occurring—the City acquired the land comprising the Park from prominent Palo Alto residents Dr. Russel Lee and Mrs. Dorothy Lee for $1.3 million."""
It’s interesting, the main way many parks in San Francisco avoid the former problem is by simply being inhospitable - the tops of hills, slopes, the cold, the lack of facilities. In Pacific Heights and the Presidio the parks are hard to use with dignity because of their geography, climate, etc, not necessarily by design. But it goes a long way obviating the need to deploy the law to keep homeless and crunchy people out.
Compare to the Mission, which is a very habitable, sunny and flat part of town, with most services accessible by short walks, that has many small parks that itinerant people use, sometimes pretty intensively.
If it could, would residents in the Mission restrict its parks? I don’t know if it’s possible to restrict public access to things, have a positive experience of gentrification as a net seller of homes / existing resident, and not harass visible minorities all at the same time.
Palo Alto residents are so confident in their belief they will never someday be harassed, that the demographics of their town will not change. And maybe when it does change there will be both homeless people and a visible minority family, unmolested, in the park.
In this sense the confusion about, who owns the park - it doesn’t really matter. If Palo Alto wants to prevent itinerant people from using the park, and if it doesn’t care that that also means every black and Hispanic person is asked if they are residents and white and Asian people are not, they will get their way. The solution is through hearts and minds - through empathy and selflessness really. If the ACLU could get people to see that anyone’s family member could be homeless, anyone could have mental illness, that those very same East and South Asian immigrants almost certainly had relatives who were beggars, you could maybe move the needle.
In a nutshell, the basis is: - Restricts right of travel, which is considered a fundamental right that has been repeatedly reaffirmed by the Supreme Courts of both the state and the country. - Restricts free speech: people are being barred from exercising political speech (or speech of any kind) inside the park. - Restricts freedom of assembly: Peaceful gatherings in the park to discuss these things are barred.
Basically, the beef is with the ordinances that fine and enforcement that harasses people who will enter the park anyway.
EDIT: There is another interesting basis: One of the plaintiffs is a black store owner (store located in Palo Alto), who pays taxes to the city (that presumably contribute to the upkeep of the park), but still can't enter the park, because she lives in Menlo Park, a neighboring town. So what is the basis for excluding her from the park? It seems to me that 'residents pay taxes but others do not' is not a valid argument for barring access to nonresidents, if you consider the plaintiff's complaint.
Also, do the merits of the case change if the plaintiff was a white store owner? Why is their race relevant?
Palo Alto is a neighbor of East Palo Alto, which is on the (less desirable) bay shore. There have been racist covenants and exclusionary policies applied towards colored people in the past in Palo Alto, resulting in Palo Alto becoming majority white and East Palo Alto becoming majority colored. All of this is known fact, and lends credence to the complaint.
Personally, I think the case has merit even without the race aspect. But the race aspect certainly bolsters plaintiffs' arguments.
If that’s what they win on, then it isn’t somehow the end of residency-restricted public parks writ large, it’s probably the end of residency restricted public parks near EPA.
It would helpful to be more specific or name some names. I've entered libraries across the U. S. having never once been asked for a card of any sort.
I know universities are somewhat of a different environment, but it does point out that restricting public access to publicly-funded property isn't as wildly farfetched and unacceptable as some other comments in this thread portray.
Whatever article/amendment of the US Constitution proscribes restriction to local parks on the basis of residency would ostensibly also proscribe any public government institution from discriminating on the basis of residency.
Where? AFAIK gated neighborhoods are common all across the US, and in many cases (though not all) the roads within such neighborhoods are still owned by the city.
edit: after looking into it, it appears that one common scenario is for an HOA to enter an agreement with the city where the city continues to provide street services on the community streets even though the streets are owned by the HOA. I'm not sure if that was the situation with my parents hood, but it certainly muddles the water a bit.
>With regard to law enforcement, the Texas Penal Code defines a “public place” as any place to which the public or a substantial group of the public has access and includes, but is not limited to, streets ... In Woodruff v. State, 899 S.W.2d 443, 445-46 (Tex. App.–Austin 1995, no pet.), the defendant was arrested for driving while intoxicated on the grounds of Bergstrom Air Force Base. The court held that Bergstrom was a public place, even though it was fenced and the only entrance was through a guarded access gate. Is a gated community a place where a “substantial group of the public” has access? The answer is unclear. Some city police departments may adopt a policy to respond to certain types of calls from gated communities, but not others. Again, the problem involves the provision of public funds for private purposes, which is prohibited by the Constitution and state law.
From http://www.jgradyrandlepc.com/local-governmental-entities/ga...
Here in Toronto, the libraries are open to the public. Borrowing material or using their online facilities requires membership, still known as "having a library card," and for that you need to live, work, or study in Toronto.
(Update, courtesy xatt: There are also paid memberships available for those who don't qualify for free membership, approximately CAD10/month: https://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/using-the-library/your-l.... But physical access to the library is free to everyone.)
I also think there are other allowances, such as if you care for a relative who lives there, but the gist is:
1. Anybody can walk in and use the physical library, and; 2. There are additional resources for those who have a connection to the jurisdiction.
There are similar things around community centres. During public swim, everybody can swim. During certain programs, you may need to be a member of the facility. I am aware that some physical parks have special programs, and you may need to register with the city and be a resident to use them.
But the park itself is public, and anybody can go there. You just may not be able to drop into an outdoor yoga program.
So clearly, we have a two-tier system, and the broadest tier is literally "everyone." The second tier is the size of a municipality.
In a certain very generous sense, Toronto's libraries, community centres, and park programs are similar to "gated" parks for a neighbourhood, as they have some features/programs that require membership and/or some connection to the municipality.
But in another, they are manifestly different. Neighbourhood parks are usually set up to exclude "the wrong people." They're about constructing gated communities, with all the classist and racist implications associated with these structures.
Whereas, public libraries are exactly what they say on the tin: They're for the public. Rich, poor, from near, or far.
https://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/using-the-library/your-l...
I'm surprised at that. Here in the UK you can generally get a temporary library card pretty easily (as in, walk up to the counter and fill out a form and get one there and then easy) if you don't live in the area
I think that the reality for the underclass in the US is that in theory, public services, voting, parks, community centres, education, jobs, and so forth are equally available, but that is not how it works in practice.
What would be the solution to the much bigger problem you're bringing up? Perhaps the problem is that we allow our citizens to become poor in the US, not that we have some of our public facilities located near rich people?
This is also emblematic of Palo Alto for me: hypocrisy through and through. Residents make a big fuss about being liberal: signs up on every other house declaring the occupants' high-minded support of illegal immigrants, gay, transgender, and bi people, the "reality" of science, and so on. At the same time, the city rips up comfortable benches on the sidewalks and puts in benches that are so uncomfortable, they make you think why the city bothered with this stuff (as you can guess, they are there to discourage homeless/indigent people from sleeping on them). City residents also made a big fuss about a neighborhood (private) girls' school from expanding enrollment (lots of flimsy reasons given, but the real reason is that the increase in traffic would have made a small dent in already astronomical home values).
I could go on and on, but on the whole, my take on this: Serves them right, and they deserve to lose. We need more cases like this to show these people they still live in the United States.
There's an argument about limiting the number of people who visit in order to preserve the natural environment, and residents who pay for it should have first priority, but an outright ban probably isn't best.
I'm surprised that the state doesn't just buy it off the town.
What Palo Alto might do is what other cities do and it’s charge some ridiculous entrance fee. There are a few of these in the Bay Area.
It would be a sad day if SF allows encampments in the gardens, welcoming urban decay into an urban escape.
I visit California every couple years and it's one of my favorite vacation spots. My favorite beaches are the small ones with tiny walkways between residential homes. You feel like you're trespassing, but you're not.
I've also made use of dozens of parks in CA as my son was a professional BMX rider for a time and we went on a tour of as many CA skate parks as he could ride. It was a good time and we were allowed access to every park we visited.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/travel/article/Santa-Cruz-s-priv...
Beach access is a right, actively defended by surfrider.org, who can use your support.
Another tactic I’ve seen in other circumstances is you have to get a “reservation” ahead of time.
In particular, in California, fees cannot be higher than the cost of providing the service. In drought years, there have been proposals to allow people to use water as they wish, but charge (steeply) progressively-increasing fees for each gallon of water used. The theory being that excess revenues could be put toward obtaining more water (via, e.g., desalinization). Such proposals have been shot down because the cost of providing water doesn't support the high fees that would be necessary to discourage frivolous use.
https://lahstalon.org/affordable-teacher-housing-to-be-built...
The only logical remedy is to card everyone going into any other city park in California. If they are a Palo Alto resident, no entry. If they are from anywhere else, come on in.
But really that last one is the only one you need to check:
"Only residents of the city and regular or part-time city employees, members of their households related by blood, marriage, or adoption, or their accompanied guests are entitled to enter on foot or by bicycle or vehicle and remain in Foothills Park." - https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/paloalto/latest/paloal...
When my friend Corey was on the council he tried to open access to non-residents, but there wasn't support for it.
I mean...clearly they did not per the wording of Palo Alto Municipal Code.
That basically means that they've just chosen to only station enforcers at the entrance, not that it's allowed. The code says that PA police can charge you with a misdemeanor just for being inside the bounds of the park.
Here is the ordinance: https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/paloalto/latest/paloal...
Here is the complaint: https://www.aclunc.org/sites/default/files/Final_Complaint_f...
> Only residents of the city and regular or part-time city employees, members of their households related by blood, marriage, or adoption, and their accompanied guests are entitled to enter on foot or by bicycle or vehicle and remain in Foothills Park.... Upon the request of an authorized city employee or a member of the Palo Alto police department, a person seeking to enter Foothills Park at the main gate or a person within the boundaries of Foothills Park shall provide identification or information to satisfy the requirements of this subsection.... No person shall enter or remain in Foothills Park in violation of this subsection. Violations of this subsection shall be a misdemeanor.
https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2008/07/29/from-the-bay-...
> Only residents of the city and regular or part-time city employees, members of their households related by blood, marriage, or adoption, and their accompanied guests are entitled to enter on foot or by bicycle or vehicle and remain in Foothills Park. (emphasis added)
In any case, this is just moving the goalposts. The fact of the matter is that as the ordinance is written this behavior isn't allowed and can net you up to six months in jail and a $1000 fine.
EDIT:I think the park should be opened, but I think this context should be added.
In addition, even though non-residents are banned from driving into Foothills Park on the weekend, many arrive during the week, Kniss said.
https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2019/05/10/residents-onl...