JAMESTOWN – Jamestown Mayor Eddie Sundquist is presenting a compromise in regard to a plan to remove some 150 free parking spaces in the downtown, while also increasing rates from $0.50 to $1.00 an hour.
In October, Sundquist presented a city budget that called for increases to downtown parking rates. And later in the month, city principal planner Ellen Shadle attended a Jamestown City council work session and went over the details of the plan to eliminate the free downtown parking spots. During her presentation and also later in the month during an interview with WRFA, she said the adjustments would be a benefit for downtown visitors because it would help to free up more parking spaces and making it easier to find a spot, while also diverting more parking into the city’s parking ramps and parking lots, especially for those work or own businesses downtown.
The announcement didn’t go over well with the downtown business community, which has voiced opposition to the proposal because they feel it would serve as a deterrent for customers from coming into the downtown. Several members of the city council also appear reluctant to move forward the with the changes.
This week, Sundquist presented what he calls a compromise. He said that the city would move forward with installing meters in the downtown free parking zone, but also that all meters in the downtown would also provide 20 minutes of free parking time.
“This is something they recently did in Boise, Idaho and its one of the compromises we proposed to city council,” Sundquist said during an interview on WRFA. “Let’s make every metered parking spot in the city offer a free 20 minutes. So you’ll get whatever you put into the meter, plus an additional 20 minutes. And if you have to just run errands, go to the bank, run somewhere else, you don’t even have to put money in the meter. You’ll get 20 minutes and can go from there.”
Sundquist said the proposal would also include a digital chalking method to be used by parking enforcement, which would allow them to keep track of vehicles that may be parked in a spot longer than 20 minutes.
“It’s easy for us to calculate because we would be moving to digitally chalking cars based on scanning their license plates,” he said.
Sundquist said none of the changes are motivated by an effort to increase city revenue.
Eddie Sundquist
“It’s not about more revenue for the city and it never is for us,” Sunquist said. “I’ve been very clear to all our employees and department heads that the work we do should be data driven. What are some of the best practices we’re seeing in other communities and other cities? so as part of that, we brought together all of our parking operations – parking enforcement officers, traffic division, and development office. And we asked, ‘How can we reimagine how parking should be in the city. What are other cities doing and what are the best practices?”
Sundquist also noted that while there is also a proposal in his budget to increase parking fines from $10 to $15 for a standard parking violation, he is also calling for an extension in the length of time given to pay for the fine. Currently a violator has 10 days to pay a fine before it is doubled, and if 20 days passes before a fine is paid, it would be tripled. Under the new proposal, the length would be increased.
“We want to provide a $15 fine for parking days, but you will now have 20 days to pay – so you’ll have double the time. So once 20 days hits, it doubles, and once 30 days hits, it triples,” Sundquist said.
he new compromise proposal will now go to the city council for its consideration as part of the 2021 budget proposal.
You can’t do anything in 20 minutes! There goes every restaurants lunch clientele