The president and vice president of the Pamplona Homeowner’s Association met with SJC City officials and Principal Smalley, Vice President Jindra, and Mr.Beekman to discuss the residents’ frustrations with student parking and possible solutions.

The school lost around 80 parking spots this year due to the construction of the new building, leaving around half of the juniors who entered the parking raffle spotless. Originally, the school was expecting to gain approximately 100 additional spots after construction; however, new estimations revealed that there will actually be a net loss of four spots.

Many students have no alternatives for rides to school, and are left without any options other than parking illegally in the staff lot or in the Rancho San Juan Community across the street, risking getting towed.

“We had a student who left a note on one of our homeowner’s doorstep this year stating, ‘Please don’t tow my car, I have a 3.6 GPA, I don’t have another ride to school, there’s no bus service, my parents leave for work too early to bring me to school and I live too far to walk. I have no other means to get to school’,” said John Davis, President of the Rancho San Juan Homeowner’ Association.

“Well, how do you tow that vehicle and still have a sense of morality? I mean, we do have a quality of life issue, but that student is not getting an education if they’re worried about their car being towed. At the same time, where is the balance? I’m mandated as the president of the HOA, and the HOA is mandated by statute, that we enforce our rules and regulations. And that’s the hard part.”

The issues extends beyond just trespassing and parking in residential spaces. According to Davis, the biggest problem is that people have been entering through the exit gates- at times even hitting the gates. Not only does this cause major safety issues, such as colliding with pedestrians or other vehicles, but the HOA is having to pay for these damages.

“At large football games and sporting events, that’s where we see a big issue [of people entering through the wrong gate], and we’re actually having to spend money and hire private security guards just to keep people from coming in and parking in our development,” said Davis. “That’s where we’re getting a little more of the antagonistic behavior and the beer bottles and everything else being left by [students where they were parked].”

Davis stated that since the escalation of the parking crisis, the community has seen evidence of  increased drug use, drinking, and other inappropriate behavior by non-residents of the community in the neighborhood. However, the association has not yet identified who exactly is trespassing, or whether they are students at SJHHS or any other school.

The Rancho San Juan Community has also seen a rise in vandalism and aggression towards the homeowners.

“I don’t really care if people park by my house, but I’ve had four [political] signs stolen, and that’s not okay,” said Lucy Collins, an SJHHS junior and resident of the Rancho San Juan neighborhood. “They stole my signs, and with it, any empathy I had for their cars getting towed.”

In addition to the parking violations within the community, Rancho San Juan has experienced safety problems in regards to parents parking at the entrance to the community at the intersection of Stallion Ridge and Via Pamplona.

Since the area is marked by signs stating California Vehicle Code 22658 A and California Vehicle Code 22500.1, cars parked on the curb are blocking a designated emergency route. This is a serious violation of the community’s safety, and in the case of a real emergency, this could delay the arrival of the first responders and cause significant harm or death.

The fire marshall and city engineer informed the community that the current signs were enough to ticket the cars parked there, but the OCSD said that they will not ticket parents unless the curbs are painted red.

“The resolution is that the city is working with the sheriff’s department to figure out when and if the sheriff department can issue parking citations,” said Mr. Jindra. “So for anybody who is stopped there waiting for their kid they’re going to get a parking ticket.”

According to Davis, the source of the parking issues lies with the fact that the school was designed with only one ingress and egress route. While some have suggested that a solution to this would be that the fire trail be transformed into a real road, the City informed that this will not happen at the October 5th meeting.

“The overall city planning is really the fault and the issue, it’s not anything else, we’re just having to deal with the consequences of the lack of appropriate planning, ” said Davis.

There are no current solutions to the parking situation, but the HOA, city, and school are all cooperating to hopefully find a fix before parking becomes more impacted. Mr. Jindra suggested a joint-use contract with the Mormon Church over the purchased land as a possible solution, and Davis mentioned increasing bus availability for students to lessen the parking crisis as one of the HOA’s objectives.