4 ms·

There are tons of public facilities, parks, etc. that have restrictions for non-residents that have never been seen as an issue. The argument being that local t

There are tons of public facilities, parks, etc. that have restrictions for non-residents that have never been seen as an issue. The argument being that local taxpayers are the ones paying for the facilities and maintenance, etc. For example, for my wedding reception we rented a barn in a park that's often used for weddings and other events. Since my sister is a resident of the city she was able to rent the barn at a discount, while non-residents would have had to pay significantly more. Never crossed my mind that such a thing might be "discriminatory" or "unconstitutional." I've seen plenty of similar things with public pools, out of state hunting licenses, library cards, and much more. "Public" doesn't mean "free access for all," and that's independent of any alleged racial discrimination claims the ACLU is making.

sieabahlpark 6y ago
This just seems like a pretty lawsuit to get free stuff paid for by other people. There isn't anything discriminating here besides the taxes you have paid.
lhorie 6y ago
It looks like this one is different in the sense that you cannot enter even by paying a fee if you are not a resident, unlike e.g. the SF botanical garden (free for residents, but costs money for non-residents).
GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
Public literally means "of or concerning the people as a whole". California doesn't charge out of state tourists extra to visit their state park system. That would be absurd, as it's a public park for public use. Not to mention that all public lands in the Bay Area are funded in part through state and federal funds.
- seedless-sensat 6y ago
  Not endorsing Palo Alto here, but just FYI Utah state parks cost more for non-residents.
  - GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
    Interestingly enough they seem to nickle and dime residents for usage of their own park too: https://stateparks.utah.gov/parks/sand-hollow/park-fees/ https://stateparks.utah.gov/parks/sand-hollow/park-fees/ It's definitely foreign to me when I can park my car for two weeks at a California state park for cheap, and backpack through half a dozen state and national parks, without hiking down to each ranger station and stuffing a $20 bill in the box.
    - HideousKojima 6y ago
      In a lot of places you can buy passes that cover multiple parks in the area
- colanderman 6y ago
  > California doesn't charge out of state tourists extra to visit their state park system. That would be absurd, as it's a public park for public use. Many states do in fact do this; I don't think it's so absurd (not saying I necessarily agree/disagree with the practice). Certainly, there's much less of an institutionalized-racism aspect with such boundaries at a state level, than a neighborhood/city level. E.g. in Massachusetts: https://www.mass.gov/guides/parking-at-massachusetts-state-parks#-when-do-i-have-to-pay-a-parking-fee- https://www.mass.gov/guides/parking-at-massachusetts-state-p...
swashboon 6y ago
That's probably because none of the things you mentioned are "discriminatory" - anyone can rent them for a fee. The article is clearly talking about quite literal discriminatory action, that and group can and one group cannot.
mechagodzilla 6y ago
Outdoor public spaces typically are treated differently from a legal perspective. Preventing non-residents from using public roads or sidewalks isn't done anywhere that I'm aware of, for instance. My town on the east coast does this with local parks, and I'm fairly certain the motivation is (historically and currently) to prevent residents of the neighboring (less-rich/white) towns from entering, and for giving police a pretext to hassle them. I'm not aware of any non-affluent towns that have such policies and many affluent ones that do.
sedatk 6y ago
Then, the logical step should be to get the maintenance fee from guests instead of residents, instead of banning people.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
dbt00 6y ago
This isn't fee for everyone, discounts for residents. It's free for residents, boot on the face for everyone. That's a serious difference.
stefan_ 6y ago
Making public parks an over-policed, over-regulated, time limited and admission only "adventure park" is a uniquely American obsession. What on earth do you think public means?
- leetcrew 6y ago
  "public" almost never means literally anyone can use the thing without restriction. I can't drive any vehicle I want on a public road, and I can't drive a motor vehicle on them at all if I don't have the proper license. in many places it is a crime for me to cross a road on foot if I don't use a designated crosswalk. most of the parks near me are closed from dusk to dawn, though I doubt this is an enforcement priority. I don't see any inherent reason why it would be wrong to limit access to a public service or property to people who actually live in the jurisdiction that maintains it. the history of who lives in a particular jurisdiction and why is often sordid, but that's a separate issue.
- HideousKojima 6y ago
  >Making public parks an over-policed, over-regulated, time limited and admission only "adventure park" is a uniquely American obsession. Having seen the huge amounts of homeless drug addicts in parks all over (in San Diego, LA, SF, Seattle, and Salt Lake City from my personal experience, and I'm sure it's similar elsewhere) I can definitely understand the motivation behind trying to limit access to parks. Whether or not it's right to do is a different matter
labcomputer 6y ago
That's a pretty different scenario. To recap: Palo Alto excludes anyone who isn't a resident (or guest of a resident) from using Foothill. At all. For any amount of money. There's literally a gate with a guardhouse (with a guard) at the park entrance on Page Mill Road. They don't let you in without proof that you live in PA. You could, of course, hop the fence further up on Page Mill... As for a wedding: you're paying for semi-exclusive access to the park because a large wedding or other event may be depriving other park users access and/or may cause excess litter which needs to be removed at taxpayer expense. That residents receive a discount on special event fees just means that they have already partially payed the fees via taxes.
- abhgh 6y ago
  I can vouch for the gate with a guardhouse. Was turned away by the guard because I am not a PA resident (I live in Mtn View).
quesera 6y ago
Similarly: town landfills, school districts, etc. No access is available to non-residents at any price. Which is not to say that Palo Alto is being reasonable here, just that there is a lot of precedent and I'm not clear on the distinction.
- lhorie 6y ago
  You can certainly get into a school without being a resident. They might ask you to leave if you are disrupting classes or whatever, sure, but there's nothing that says you can't come from out of state and pick up your grandchildren after school, for example (provided that the parents have provided prior permission). Or just talk to the faculty, etc. Journalists do that. Another example: before Covid, my kid's school provided parking spots in school grounds for a nearby festival as a fundraiser. And in many schools, events like science fairs are open to the public. As for landfills, I'm not sure there's a distinction between residents and non-residents. AFAIK, they're treated in similar ways to preservation areas, where mostly everyone is forbidden from entering, except the people who are working there (and happen to live nearby by proxy)
  - quesera 6y ago
    Sorry, I wrote "landfill" but I really meant "transfer station" -- i.e. the place you go to drop off rubbish/garbage/trash/recyclables, some of which gets plowed into the landfill. Re: schools.. Many school grounds are not open to the public. Special events, perhaps, but you can't generally just wander in. In the odd circumstances you describe (journalists, parentally-designated temporary guardians), arrangements must be made in advance and can often be denied, or are on behalf of the resident. Again, I'm just not sure where the line gets drawn. Parks are open space, and traditionally open to the public, but many other city-operated and -funded facilities are not. You might conclude that the marginal operating expense of parks is not high enough for most towns to justify gatekeeping. But it's imaginable that some municipalities calculate expenses differently. All of this is aside from PA's history of racial exclusion, which I know nothing about. Appearances matter too!
  - leetcrew 6y ago
    > You can certainly get into a school without being a resident. in my city you cannot do this unless you have a really good reason. the doors are steel and controlled from a central office. the administration may choose to let a journalist in if they feel it is beneficial to the school, but they can absolutely choose not to.

sieabahlpark 6y ago

This just seems like a pretty lawsuit to get free stuff paid for by other people. There isn't anything discriminating here besides the taxes you have paid.

lhorie 6y ago

It looks like this one is different in the sense that you cannot enter even by paying a fee if you are not a resident, unlike e.g. the SF botanical garden (free for residents, but costs money for non-residents).

GaryNumanVevo 6y ago

Public literally means "of or concerning the people as a whole". California doesn't charge out of state tourists extra to visit their state park system. That would be absurd, as it's a public park for public use. Not to mention that all public lands in the Bay Area are funded in part through state and federal funds.

seedless-sensat 6y ago
Not endorsing Palo Alto here, but just FYI Utah state parks cost more for non-residents.
- GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
  Interestingly enough they seem to nickle and dime residents for usage of their own park too: https://stateparks.utah.gov/parks/sand-hollow/park-fees/ https://stateparks.utah.gov/parks/sand-hollow/park-fees/ It's definitely foreign to me when I can park my car for two weeks at a California state park for cheap, and backpack through half a dozen state and national parks, without hiking down to each ranger station and stuffing a $20 bill in the box.
  - HideousKojima 6y ago
    In a lot of places you can buy passes that cover multiple parks in the area
colanderman 6y ago
> California doesn't charge out of state tourists extra to visit their state park system. That would be absurd, as it's a public park for public use. Many states do in fact do this; I don't think it's so absurd (not saying I necessarily agree/disagree with the practice). Certainly, there's much less of an institutionalized-racism aspect with such boundaries at a state level, than a neighborhood/city level. E.g. in Massachusetts: https://www.mass.gov/guides/parking-at-massachusetts-state-parks#-when-do-i-have-to-pay-a-parking-fee- https://www.mass.gov/guides/parking-at-massachusetts-state-p...

swashboon 6y ago

That's probably because none of the things you mentioned are "discriminatory" - anyone can rent them for a fee. The article is clearly talking about quite literal discriminatory action, that and group can and one group cannot.

mechagodzilla 6y ago

Outdoor public spaces typically are treated differently from a legal perspective. Preventing non-residents from using public roads or sidewalks isn't done anywhere that I'm aware of, for instance. My town on the east coast does this with local parks, and I'm fairly certain the motivation is (historically and currently) to prevent residents of the neighboring (less-rich/white) towns from entering, and for giving police a pretext to hassle them. I'm not aware of any non-affluent towns that have such policies and many affluent ones that do.

sedatk 6y ago

Then, the logical step should be to get the maintenance fee from guests instead of residents, instead of banning people.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

dbt00 6y ago

This isn't fee for everyone, discounts for residents. It's free for residents, boot on the face for everyone. That's a serious difference.

stefan_ 6y ago

Making public parks an over-policed, over-regulated, time limited and admission only "adventure park" is a uniquely American obsession. What on earth do you think public means?

leetcrew 6y ago
"public" almost never means literally anyone can use the thing without restriction. I can't drive any vehicle I want on a public road, and I can't drive a motor vehicle on them at all if I don't have the proper license. in many places it is a crime for me to cross a road on foot if I don't use a designated crosswalk. most of the parks near me are closed from dusk to dawn, though I doubt this is an enforcement priority. I don't see any inherent reason why it would be wrong to limit access to a public service or property to people who actually live in the jurisdiction that maintains it. the history of who lives in a particular jurisdiction and why is often sordid, but that's a separate issue.
HideousKojima 6y ago
>Making public parks an over-policed, over-regulated, time limited and admission only "adventure park" is a uniquely American obsession. Having seen the huge amounts of homeless drug addicts in parks all over (in San Diego, LA, SF, Seattle, and Salt Lake City from my personal experience, and I'm sure it's similar elsewhere) I can definitely understand the motivation behind trying to limit access to parks. Whether or not it's right to do is a different matter

labcomputer 6y ago

That's a pretty different scenario. To recap: Palo Alto excludes anyone who isn't a resident (or guest of a resident) from using Foothill. At all. For any amount of money. There's literally a gate with a guardhouse (with a guard) at the park entrance on Page Mill Road. They don't let you in without proof that you live in PA. You could, of course, hop the fence further up on Page Mill... As for a wedding: you're paying for semi-exclusive access to the park because a large wedding or other event may be depriving other park users access and/or may cause excess litter which needs to be removed at taxpayer expense. That residents receive a discount on special event fees just means that they have already partially payed the fees via taxes.

abhgh 6y ago
I can vouch for the gate with a guardhouse. Was turned away by the guard because I am not a PA resident (I live in Mtn View).

quesera 6y ago

Similarly: town landfills, school districts, etc. No access is available to non-residents at any price. Which is not to say that Palo Alto is being reasonable here, just that there is a lot of precedent and I'm not clear on the distinction.

lhorie 6y ago
You can certainly get into a school without being a resident. They might ask you to leave if you are disrupting classes or whatever, sure, but there's nothing that says you can't come from out of state and pick up your grandchildren after school, for example (provided that the parents have provided prior permission). Or just talk to the faculty, etc. Journalists do that. Another example: before Covid, my kid's school provided parking spots in school grounds for a nearby festival as a fundraiser. And in many schools, events like science fairs are open to the public. As for landfills, I'm not sure there's a distinction between residents and non-residents. AFAIK, they're treated in similar ways to preservation areas, where mostly everyone is forbidden from entering, except the people who are working there (and happen to live nearby by proxy)
- quesera 6y ago
  Sorry, I wrote "landfill" but I really meant "transfer station" -- i.e. the place you go to drop off rubbish/garbage/trash/recyclables, some of which gets plowed into the landfill. Re: schools.. Many school grounds are not open to the public. Special events, perhaps, but you can't generally just wander in. In the odd circumstances you describe (journalists, parentally-designated temporary guardians), arrangements must be made in advance and can often be denied, or are on behalf of the resident. Again, I'm just not sure where the line gets drawn. Parks are open space, and traditionally open to the public, but many other city-operated and -funded facilities are not. You might conclude that the marginal operating expense of parks is not high enough for most towns to justify gatekeeping. But it's imaginable that some municipalities calculate expenses differently. All of this is aside from PA's history of racial exclusion, which I know nothing about. Appearances matter too!
- leetcrew 6y ago
  > You can certainly get into a school without being a resident. in my city you cannot do this unless you have a really good reason. the doors are steel and controlled from a central office. the administration may choose to let a journalist in if they feel it is beneficial to the school, but they can absolutely choose not to.