Facing Tough Drought, California Applies SF Parking Methodologies to Address Water Shortage

California is facing one of the most serious droughts in decades, and to help ease concerns and shortages across the state the Drought Management Board is looking for new and innovative ways of regulating our water supplies.  CA Spokesman Lenard explained, "We all know that there's a shortage and we initially thought of regulating water more heavily and adjusting prices to help manage supplies better, but it really doesn't make the population very happy.  We took a look at how Mayor Lee and Ed Reiskin plan to manage their car parking based on voter concerns, and realized it was a much better way to go."

Water, parking, it's all the same.  Leave it unregulated and free and it all works out for the best.
Images found here and here.  

To address parking shortages, the SFMTA has foolishly implemented parking enforcement on on Sundays.  They claim it accomplished the following:

Double the average time drivers take to find a commercial parking spot on Sundays.

Reduce turnover by at least 20 percent, meaning that fewer customers can park in each space.

Cut the availability of commercial parking during Sunday business hours in half.

Reduce occupancy of underutilized parking garages on Sundays by 13 percent.

Bring more revenue into local businesses and appease the Commerce Department that defends Sunday parking enforcement.  

 Bring in $9.6 million in annual revenue to an already underfunded SFMTA.  

But Mayor Lee thinks it's a lot better to leave it free on Sundays, and that's just the kind of solution CA has been looking for in terms of water management.  Effective today they are going to allow everyone to use as much water as they need, free of charge, on Sundays.  They hope this helps ease everyone's concerns about water shortages.  

Parking citations on Sunday, noon to 6 p.m: an absolute inescapable part of life, until now.
image found here.

Not everyone agrees with Lee's stance, and Ed Reiskin has come up with a better way to mitigate parking shortages.  He proposes to keep parking meters running on Sunday, but just tell everyone it won't be enforced and no one will get cited if they go over their allotted time.  Upon hearing this, the Drought Management Board decided to adopt similar policies and tell everyone who needed water, to conserve it as much as possible, but it will be unregulated and unenforced if they take more than allotted

When asked what will happen with the lack of revenue from fines and fees associated with water usage offenders, the Drought Management Board said they would simply get a bond measure approved, akin to the one that Mayor Lee plans on recouping the $9.6 million in annual revenue due to abolishing Sunday parking.  Lee assured everyone that a bond is "magic money" and a lot better than providing a steady source of revenue every year.

To gain popularity points with the city, the SFPD is also looking at ways to implement relaxed enforcement policies on Sundays as well.  They've been toying with the idea of "Enforcement Free Sundays" for traffic violations, and half off misdemeanor fines.

Hopefully more agencies turn towards these simple populist answers to our state's most challenging problems.

"Turn yourself in if you want, or, whatever."
image found here.