Board of Aldermen 10-13-2020 Page 61
more creative about how they try to solve their parking problems. So there are other solutions that we can
do to address it as a behavior and we are not committed to doing it as a City at all. There have been
multiple pieces of Legislation brought before the Infrastructure Committee over the past two years that have
addressed different issues that were specific and local; every single one of them was tabled. Every single
one of them was put towards the parking study which expanded in scope. And | know it was just stated
that it’s unfortunate that it was supposed to take place this summer; we were really looking forward to it. But
COVID-19 came along, it was actually supposed to take place last summer and it was completely kicked
down the road every single meeting that happened. So as the City, we have no incentive for changing our
approach. All we are doing is collecting revenue, using that revenue for other projects, other slush funds —
you know let’s build a whole new parking garage and all that kind of stuff. These are issues that we’ve
kicked around in the past, but we haven’t changed the approach.
We haven't looked at - OK it was proposed in the past that we look at daytime parking passes in maybe
certain levels of the garage. That never happened because of the study and we never looked at other
mechanisms for collecting revenue other than just the parking meters themselves. All we do is the same
thing over and over again; we just charge people over and over again. And doing that with overnight
people, a couple of the Board members here have been a little bit selective in their hearing as to what the
genesis of this is. You can add the stigma to people who might have had a little too much to drink, you can
say, Oh we can’t put that on the property owner’s tax rolls because people had too much to drink, that
would be ridiculous. None of the Aldermen here ever have too much to drink or stay out. That’s an easy
argument to make, but that’s not the argument that was being made here. And that’s pretty disingenuous
to the public commenter that made pretty eloquent comments at the beginning of the meeting with regards
to how he as a resident was affected and impacted. This is not just an issue of people who are drinking too
much needing to have a little bit of break on their fines, because you can call the Police and tell them
you’ve had too much to drink and they won’t do anything with your tickets; they will waive them.
What you can do, however, is ticket people who have a fixed location and don’t have a parking solution for
them and you know where they are going to be every month, every week and you can repeatedly ticket
them over and over again. And that’s what we have seen, that’s what we have been hearing about, those
are the e-mails that we have been receiving over the summer have been about and earlier. | think when
they first started it was more directed at me and if everybody recalls, last year in the summer, | hada
constituent come up with a parking ticket that he paid for like 8 cars on his street that were all ticketed
because his street didn’t have on-street overnight parking. And | wanted to add that so that we could have
a legal way of paying for access to get parking and that was tabled. So there are areas that need on-street,
overnight parking that we as Aldermen and frankly when | say “we” | mean you, because you are the ones
who are overriding me. | have chosen not to add to the overnight parking program, we have made that
choice not to give them anything other than fines. And we can talk about how there’s a bigger problem
here and there’s bigger plans that need to be done. But if you roll the problem up large enough than you
never have to solve it. And that’s what we have been doing here for at least two years if not longer.
So | appreciate Alderman Laws actually taking an initiative and making a step, any step in the direction that
actually represents constituents’ needs. And | think everyone should consider carefully whether they are
going to continue doing the same behavior over and over again or whether they are going to claim that they
are going to change their behaviors and do things the same as they always have. Because as much as we
are trying to change the behavior of the people who are parking overnight in places where they have no
other alternative to do it and are just getting tickets. We should probably change our own behavior too and
actually take a serious look at parking and not look at is a form of revenue generating, which is small
compared to some of the other Departments and the other forms of revenue. And it doesn’t really measure
up to any of the other expenses that we have spent even tonight. We have spent much larger amounts just
on debt service than we are talking about here. And we are not looking at solutions we are not looking at
what our residents need or what people who are parking need. We are just thinking it’s late, I’m going to
send it back to Committee, I’m going to take the easy way out on this. And that’s unfortunate. | don’t think
we are representing people well at all.
