Forty-five minutes of council’s Monday, Dec. 12 meeting was spent discussing the parking district on Spring Street, with the second reading deferred until the first meeting of 2023.
In Public Comments, Planning commissioner Susan Harman encouraged council to include fines within Ord. 2332 that establishes the parking district. She said the only ordinance she could find that referred to fines was Ord. 2173 that specifies fines, such as careless parking, or parking in a no parking or reserved space.
Owner of Bridgeford House Sharon Lawler was back once more saying that Ord. 2332 excluded businesses in the parking district and noted that the B&B she owns and assists in running is the only B&B in the district. She said that off-street parking was difficult to reach as the alley has not been maintained and it would severely impact business if guests were unable to use on-street parking. She requested a couple of places in front of the business for their use.
Alderman Melissa Greene brought up the need for multi-family residences on Spring Street to be able to use on-street parking. Many of those are residences grandfathered in by Planning.
It was mentioned again that the issue with several places along the street using off-street parking was due to difficult access from a lack of maintenance on King Street. Alderman Harry Meyer said that if the street were repaired it may cut down on the debate. Whether or not those multi-family residences were required to have on-street parking was a matter of debate, and no motion was carried to allow for alderman to investigate the issue.
Alderman David Avanzino voiced disagreement to exclude the few B&Bs within the theoretical parking district, mentioning Lawler by saying, “Parking off-street is a nightmare for her guests.”
Mayor Butch Berry said that the Pearl Tatman house in the district does not have off-street parking but Planning Chair Ann Tandy-Sallee said the B&B hadn’t been in use as a business in some time. When asked by Avanzino what her thoughts were on the Bridgeford House, Tandy-Sallee said that parking had been an issue with previous owners as they hadn’t used the off-street parking.
Greene said that the Bridgeford House had allowance to use its three spots behind the building as well as two slots for on-street parking. Whether that was accurate or not was left up to further investigation.
The final bump in the road came on whether fines should be included in the ordinance or not. City Attorney Forrest Jacobi iterated that adding a fixed fine to the ordinance would repeal other Municipal Code regs regarding fines in the rest of the city. He said that he had spoken to Police Chief Brian Young and that was his view, as well. Jacobi said the police department has guidelines for different areas of the city to handle parking violations. He suggested that council give the department guidelines on how to issue the fines and leave the ordinance without strict amounts.
There was back and forth discussion on if guidelines needed to be added to the ordinance or to Ord. 2173, which Jacobi voiced not being comfortable adding. In the end, Ord. 2332 was amended to include fines of no less than $20 and no more than $70 for violations in the parking district. Meyer told Jacobi that his dissent and hearing the police chief’s dissent through him was not enough, and council requested that Young be at the next meeting.
Other Item
- Ordinances 2333 and 2334 that change the time when the city attorney and prosecuting attorney are paid from once a month to the bi-weekly schedule of other city employees both passed first, second, and third readings unanimously. Emergency clauses were invoked to make the changes immediate.