"They throw cigarette buts and trash on streets and the street sweepers just go on by because they can never get to the sidewalk," Gero said. "The same people leaving the trash are the ones preventing the streets from being cleaned."
The scenario is slated to change within the next three weeks, when signs indicating the new regulation are expected to go up, said Bill Winter, assistant deputy director of the Los Angeles County Public Works Department, traffic and lighting division.
It will be a welcome change for Gero and the 16 other Mary Street residents who signed a petition in support of the measure (there are 22 households on the block), he said. But the rule represents the second parking change implemented this year that will exacerbate a dearth of student parking on campus, Crescenta Valley High School principal Linda Evans said.
Other residents in the neighborhood succeeded earlier this year in enacting a one-hour parking limit on a block of Prospect Avenue — another former student-parking favorite, Evans said.
"The situation we face is that this is a middle school that was converted to a high school and there is no way we can provide parking for students on the campus," Evans said. "Students are going to have to park in the surrounding community."
The new twice-a-week Mary Street closure may not present an immediate parking emergency, but it could represent a trend toward a larger problem, Evans said.
"I don't know that this alone is going to create a crisis, but if we're in a series, I really need to let [the county] know that this is creating a new problem. Where are the students going to park?" she said.
