On the Fourth of July, It’s ‘Give Me Parking or Give Me Death!’

Freedom, my fellow Americans, is not free.

This is, of course, a lesson learned in grade school. “Give me liberty or give me death!” and all that. Were it not for such sentiments, we would not now have Fourth of July barbecues and fireworks spectaculars.

Think of the American Revolution and the Civil War. Think of the wars that didn’t end all wars. Yet we the people are still apt to ask what our country (or state, or county, or city) can do for us.

And so it was that on this latest Fourth of July, dozens of hapless motorists evidently thought authorities would look the other way when they parked in the red-curbed No Stopping Any Time zone along Balboa Boulevard for the first Lake Balboa fireworks show. Admission and parking--legal parking, that is--were free.

Traffic Supervisor Donald McCall seemed bemused that folks interpreted the signs to mean No Stopping Any Time Except on the Fourth of July. His crews wrote 60 citations at $60 a pop.

“It could have been worse,” McCall says. “We could have impounded them all.”

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Still, a friend of mine found those parking tickets unpatriotic. She had loaded the kids into her urban assault vehicle and trooped down to Lake Balboa before sundown. The traffic was so heavy, the parking such a mess, that she was tempted to join the crowd of wishful parkers along Balboa. Then she saw the tickets, heard the words sixty bucks, and found her way to one of the overflow lots. She propped herself and her kids on the roof of her vehicle and enjoyed the show.

Took her an hour, she says, to get out of the lot.

And a couple days later, it still rankled that the city of Los Angeles would sponsor a fireworks gathering that creates automotive chaos and not lighten up on the citations. Having received a few mean-spirited parking tickets in my time--and having arrived at work without an idea for a column--I shared her patriotic sense of outrage. The Valleyistas, I figured, would have another reason for secession.

So I called the city Recreation and Parks Department and soon found myself speaking to John Vowels, the individual most responsible for the patriotic celebration that sparked such lawless behavior.

Vowels is the rec and park department’s aquatics director for the San Fernando Valley. He is, by his own description, both “a bureaucrat” and “a little boy that’s 51 years old.”

The way he tells it, the pedal boat concession at Lake Balboa had created a nice surplus, and under the city’s agreement with the Army Corps of Engineers, which oversees the Sepulveda Basin, all revenue generated by the Lake Balboa concession must be spent there. Vowels suggested last December that Lake Balboa had both the money and the space to stage a fine Fourth of July party.

Los Angeles, Vowels figures, needs these public displays because the sale and use of personal fireworks is illegal within city limits. The need is that much greater since Pierce College in late 1996 decided it could no longer host a traditional fireworks show, due to vandalism and trash left behind by crowds.

The City Council liked Vowels’ idea. Although the only advertising was some street banners strung across some intersections, Vowels figured on a big crowd. Many fireworks shows charge admission. On the Fourth, Lake Balboa’s lots quickly filled up. Even a lot that had been set aside for handicapped parking, emergency vehicles and VIP spots for elected officials was already filled with people who had ignored traffic barriers. “Law-abiding people wouldn’t cross that line,” Vowels says.

Perhaps the spirit of rebellion pervades the Fourth.

“I’m dressed like a park ranger; I wear a badge,” Vowels says. “One guy went off ranting and raving ‘This is a free country, this is a public park.’ This guy was ready to go to blows.”

And two middle-age female “power walkers” grimly ignored posted signs that said “no trespassing” and “restricted area.” The warnings were required under the fire code, to restrict access to the fireworks launch area.

The women, Vowels says, just power-walked past the signs and himself, ignoring his warnings. Had they come by a second time, Vowels says, he might have introduced them to the police.

“I assume these lovely women frequent the park on a weekly basis,” he said. “Otherwise it wouldn’t be that much of a territorial issue for them.”

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The power walkers may have walked. But the parking scofflaws got nailed.

“The question I have is, how bad was it really?” Vowels says.

Sixty parking citations, he suggests, isn’t much of a problem when free parking was provided for more than 2,000 vehicles. Two huge lots holding 1,000 cars each filled up by 7 p.m. The crowd was estimated at 40,000, with many arriving by foot, bicycle and roller skates.

The proximity of Van Nuys Airport required pyrotechnics experts to keep the altitude beneath 400 feet. Five hundred mortars were fired in 16 minutes, and 208 more were launched in a furious finale. “It was so intense the whole park was lit up,” Vowels says.

The intensity carried over into the exodus. Young park employees who did duty directing traffic, he says, were cautioned to react tactfully to hostility.

This being America, the occasional one-finger salute was noticed. But all things considered, Vowels seems pleased with Lake Balboa’s inaugural fireworks extravaganza.

On Monday, he says, his office even got a call from somebody saying thank you. Safe to assume that person didn’t park in the red.

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Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to him at The Times’ Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth, CA 91311, or via e-mail at scott.harris@latimes.com Please include a phone number.