CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Alberto Vasquez says he and his family have lived on 10th Street in Corpus Christi for nearly 20 years, but recently, he's having to set out traffic cones to make sure nobody parks in front of his house.
"Sometimes we need the space for a nurse to come and take a look at my mother-in-law," Vasquez says. His mother-in-law is handicapped.
But the parking problems, according to Vasquez, come when students of the nearby Aveda Institute, just up the street, arrive for classes from 9:00 a.m. until late at night, Tuesday through Saturday. He says sometimes they move his cones, or ignore the 'no parking' sign in his front yard, so they can park and get to their classes.
Vasquez claims someone even pulled the sign out of his front yard and threw it over the fence.
He says he's contacted CCPD and other city departments for help about this.
So did we.
We contacted five different city departments, and District 2 City Councilman Ben Molina told the Troubleshooters they had never heard about this situation, but more importantly, there isn't much they can do about it.
"The city would say, 'well it's a public street,'" the Troubleshooters told Vasquez. "They can park wherever they want to."
"Uh huh. Uh huh. No, I understand that. And I don't have a problem with that, OK?," replied Vasquez. "The only thing I want is, when I got my trash cans out, do not move them."
Vasquez says he's personally spoken with Aveda about the parking dilemma, yet the problem persists.
The Troubleshooters tried speaking with Aveda management, and while we couldn't get an on-camera interview, they did send an email. It reads:
"Thank you for the opportunity to respond. We understand the frustration our neighbor is experiencing and would never intentionally infringe on the property of anyone in our community. We explain to our students during orientation where they are permitted to park and coach all students in the moment when violations are observed. We are committed to doing whatever is necessary to ensure this doesn’t keep occurring and will be meeting with our student body this morning to clearly communicate the expectations and consequences of any subsequent violations."
Kalli Blackwell Peterman
General Manager
Aveda Arts and Sciences Institutes
