Yaroslavsky Threatens to Remove Meters : Studio City: He says the mayor’s budget plan reneges on area parking obligations.

Complaining that San Fernando Valley motorists are being unfairly nickel-and-dimed by City Hall, Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky is threatening to retaliate by removing parking meters from Studio City.

Mayor Tom Bradley’s proposed budget would renege on obligations to build a local parking lot with $2.1 million in meter revenue, and instead siphon off the money to help solve the city’s budget crisis, Yaroslavsky said.

Other districts, such as Westwood Village, Chinatown, Koreatown and Mid-Wilshire, would also be improperly stripped of their meter revenue under Bradley’s proposed budget, Yaroslavsky charged Thursday.

The councilman predicted that merchants angry at the diversion of funds might resort to civil disobedience--such as clogging the meters’ coin slots with chewing gum.

“The Westside and the West Valley and downtown and Chinatown are simply not going to subsidize the rest of the city,” Yaroslavsky said during a debate Thursday on Bradley’s budget proposal. “You are not going to get those nickel and dimes and quarters out of there.”

It was too early to tell Thursday whether other council members would take up Yaroslavsky’s call to fight against the gutting of the parking funds, or would support his threat to remove the meters.

City transportation officials said that, with the consent of merchants in the area, Yaroslavsky could order the removal of the meters if he wishes. Yaroslavsky said he might back off his threat if a method is found to pay for parking lots that had been planned for Westwood and Studio City.

Bradley’s proposal to tap the parking-meter fund would jeopardize a plan to spend $2.1 million to pay for a first-ever public parking lot in Studio City. It would also put on hold a proposed loan of $500,000 to the Library Department to purchase land for an expansion of the Studio City Branch Library.

The Los Angeles Board of Transportation Commissioners recommended April 8 that the City Council use money from the city’s parking-meter fund to pay for the lot and the library expansion loan.

The city’s Department of Transportation has been considering one of three sites for the parking lot in the 12200 block of Ventura Boulevard, between Laurel Grove Avenue and Laurel Canyon Boulevard--all on land now used for privately owned parking lots. Each lot would have about 80 spaces.

Bradley’s plan to tap the city’s parking-meter fund also received harsh criticism from Studio City residents and business leaders.

Tony Lucente, president of the Studio City Residents Assn., which led the effort to get funding for the lot, complained that “the city’s been collecting literally thousands and thousands of dollars from Studio City for years and we get nothing to show for it.”

Lucente said the lack of parking is hurting commerce in the area and forcing customers to park in residential neighborhoods.

“By not helping to solve parking problems, they are just adding to the problems,” he said.

Sondra Frohlich, executive director of the Studio City Chamber of Commerce, agreed. “Having an off-street parking facility in Studio City is of the utmost importance to the residents and merchants of Studio City,” she said.

She said the chamber has for years been told that money in the parking-meter fund would be used only to purchase off-street parking.

The budget debate erupted over Bradley’s proposal to take $37.5 million from a parking-meter trust fund to help close what is projected to be a $180-million deficit in the fiscal year beginning July 1. Bradley said he did not like taking the money, but that he had no choice to maintain city services, in particular the Police and Fire departments.

But Yaroslavsky, head of the influential Budget and Finance Committee, said the money would in any case be available for only one year, and could not sustain city services over the long term.