Board of Aldermen 11-10-2020 Page 19
Alderman Lopez
So we had talked about this at the Parking Committee, we had planned to have a Parking Steering
Committee composed. | know that Alderman Wilshire had agreed to that and is probably in the process of
putting that forward. At the time, it had not made sense to try to introduce Legislation narrowing down the
overnight parking waiver attempt that Alderman Laws had introduced to the parking area because the
Director of Economic Development wasn’t entirely sure as to what areas that constituted. We didn’t want to
accidentally introduce it in an unknown fashion as a last-minute kind of a thing. But the intent here is this
would not only continue the concept that we are already doing with waiving the parking fees during the day,
but it would also pilot in a much more minimized way, different ways to modify parking behavior and
overnight parking needs.
So the purpose as it was outlined by the Economic Development Office of parking fees is not to generate
revenue, it is to manage behaviors. And in this particular case, we were concerned with Alderman Laws’
proposal that if we were too arbitrary with cutting the income and the revenue that was coming through the
parking fees that were being collected for people who are parking overnight, we would impair our ability to
manage that behavior because then we wouldn’t be able to pay for the overnight parking staff that would do
it. Their roles would be reduced and they would instead be working during the day.
So | am proposing this as a compromise, we had discussed in the previous meeting in that we can see
what impact that reduction actually has without it being an open-ended change to parking; without it costing
such an unaffordable amount that we have to discontinue overnight parking. It was considered a fairly
negligible amount in the meeting just to do it in concert with waiving the daytime parking fees for this
particular or in this particular way.
President Wilshire
All set, Alderman Lopez?
Alderman Lopez
Yes.
President Wilshire
| did not agree to form the Steering Committee, | agreed to look int it.
Alderman Lopez
Oh ok.
President Wilshire
Just for the record.
Alderman Lopez
So just to clarify when you look into it, should | propose Legislation because | don’t want to vote to do it if
you were going to do it.
President Wilshire
No, | already sent you a letter saying | wasn’t going to do it.
