Something odd with that RV owners story. Parked in the middle of the road? Only description is a red car? Not a very good description?

Wow, the bigotry in Mountain View is so strong that even when one of our neighbors is the victim of a crime, some of you feel the need to blame the victim and cast doubt on their story. [Portion removed due to disrespectful comment or offensive language]

The real shame is that shady opportunists are renting out dilapidated RVs to the poor and exploiting them. It's one thing to be forced into a car or an RV due to high housing prices. It's another for greedy landlords to take advantage of their dire situation and offer them for rent. All while the city turns a blind eye to things such as city code and code enforcement that is designed to protect people and keep them safe.

I agree. Something is not right here. Not even the dumbest criminal does pretty much nothing to conseal him/her self. I believe he was scared and should have called the cops, but I feel there is more to this.

Until they start paying rent to a landlord who is paying property taxes, or they pay property taxes directly, they are not neighbors.

They are visitors at best, unwelcome guests at worst.

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If everybody is a "neighbor", then the word is meaningless.

People that are in RVs are deserving of human rights. They are people, and if they are citizens of the US they should get all benefits there in.

They are not neighbors, however.

They live adjacent to you. They work in local businesses. Their kids go to local schools. They vote in local elections. You might not want to admit it because you view them as inferior, but they are your neighbors. Why not try to treat them that way?

There should be a tax for parking RVs on our city streets. They are obviously using city services, so they should contribute.

The anonymous poster Shame continually accuses other anonymous posters as being bigots on discussion thread on this story and many others. Shame is in violation of the Terms of Use. It's getting very tiresome. Why are his/her comments not being removed?

Oh, Elaine, if you'd like to debate my points, go ahead. That you're resorting to wanting to purely silence me shows how little argument you actually have. If not bigotry, what else would you call judging your neighbors based solely on their living circumstances and denying that they are your neighbors?

That's not bigotry. Bigotry is "intolerance toward those who hold different opinions from oneself." That's actually what you, Shame, are demonstrating here.

I am pointing out that people living in RVs aren't neighbors. They have the ability to move at will. Who knows if they are registered to vote in the city? How do we know they work in this city at all? We have no evidence of any of that. We know that they are living for free on the street, illegally due to the 6 foot height limit I might add.

Here's how you could actually shame us all -- invite these RV dwellers to line up in front and around your house, and offer them your water and a sewer hookup. Then you have some room to talk.

Bigotry only applies to people holding opinions? You don't think racism is a form of bigotry? Have we just entered some strange new realm where words don't have any shared meaning between people?

Literally, by definition, they are neighbors. They live near or adjacent to you. Neighbor has never meant "pays property taxes" or whatever strange meaning you're putting on it.

You're entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts.

The RV lifestyle here isn't safe. It isn't healthy. The streets weren't made to have people parking giant RVs all along them.

They are taking parking spots from people who live in apartments. They are crowding out bicyclists into the street. They are not contributing to property taxes.

What is the long term plan here? We already have people renting out RVs, and thereby avoiding tons of regulations in the process. We have RVs dumping sewage into storm drains. We have RVs using diesel generators on the streets. None of this is in anyway good.

And yet we have people like Shame not only tolerate it, but actively defend it out of some odd belief system.

The majority of RV dwellers aren't long-time residents who have lots of family in the area and are waiting for... I don't know what. The majority at this point are people that heard the MV accepts this behavior, has pretty good weather and ample parks. So, hey, why not move there?

An example of this would be that wooden-RV that was next to Target for months. They moved here from Sacramento, because her mother lived in Palo Alto. Why didn't she park in front of her mother's house?

Because Palo Alto, like Los Altos, doesn't put up with this crap.

It will take a public health issue, something like a hepatitis outbreak, to convince the city it can no longer dodge the bullet on this. It's happened already in San Diego, Los Angeles and East Palo Alto. Then the real finger pointing will begin.

And my advice to Shame is to just present your point of view without linking it to an accusation.

Elaine, I'm glad to see that you've decided that censoring my posts is not an appropriate approach. Why is it that you still cannot address the content of my posts?

RVsAreCampers, are you so detached from reality that you think people just want to live some RV lifestyle? They are in RVs because of the housing crisis, because of our choice as a community to not build enough housing.

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Here's a solution - take that RV and drive to an area that you can afford to live in.

It's not really any trickier than that.

Ever since MV decided to not enforce Section 19.111c, the city and its residents are grossly missing the legal means of controlling the out-of-control vehicle dwelling on our streets. Look at Los Angeles: in a little over a year of their original ordinance being ruled unconstitutional, the city updated/clarified the ordinance under LAMC Section 85.02:

Web Link

Our residents have endured long enough and need the city to take action now.

You're absolutely right, ActionNeeded. Our residents that have been forced to live in RVs and their cars have endured long enough. The city needs to take action to build enough housing so it's affordable for everyone, not just the wealthy homeowners and tech millionaires.