Mailbag: Protest against an ‘unenforceable’ rule

My thanks to The Leader for mentioning my struggle for the right to walk my bicycle across the publicly owned Mariposa Bridge in your top 10 local stories of 2016. I decided to test the new ordinance banning bikes from the bridge, which Burbank City Atty. Amy Albano told the City Council would be “unenforceable” during their first public discussions of this issue in December 2015.

Gandhi famously said, “even petty injustices must be opposed or they become larger” and in that spirit I informed the Burbank Police that I had committed an act of civil disobedience in regards to the new bridge ordinance by walking my bike across it and would respectfully submit myself for whatever action they needed to take against me.

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The only correction I would make to The Leader reporting of my discussion with the police is that they did not give me a “warning” of any kind, as the article indicated they had. The only thing they said to me when I called them to report myself was that they had no intention of issuing citations to bicyclists who walked or carried their bikes across the bridge in a safe and responsible manner.

I fully intend to keep on walking my bicycle across the Mariposa Bridge, but only when there are no horses on or near it.

I invite Leader readers to watch a documentary, “The Bridge to Nowhere” by German film director Alexander Gall that centers on the Mariposa Bridge controversy. It can be found at https://youtu.be/LdVz_JBDfrw.

Doug Weiskopf
Burbank