By Michael Howell
Parking in downtown Hamilton has suddenly become a hot topic of discussion since the City’s new traffic enforcement officer has been making the rounds. City Councilor Al Mitchell, who owns a business on Main Street, called the parking situation downtown “a point of contention. It’s ugly down there, and I am sitting in the war zone.”
The City has had an ordinance on the books for a long time restricting parking in the downtown to 90 minutes. For a while the city had an enforcement officer who patrolled the downtown, marking tires and issuing tickets, but when the patrol officer resigned the position was left vacant. It was the filling of that position and the renewal of parking enforcement that has driven the most recent discussions about the ordinance.
Councilor Mitchell told the Committee of the Whole last month that he had heard a lot of complaints recently about enforcement and had talked to about a hundred business people about it.
“What we want is enforcement, but we have to take a look at it,” he said. “I think people have gotten out of the habit of enforcement. We don’t want to be chasing people out of the downtown.” He suggested a moratorium on issuing tickets while something is figured out. He said personally he was for extending the parking limit to two hours and he felt most of the business people he talked to were in agreement that extending the parking hours was a good idea.
Overtime parking is not the only problem to surface now that enforcement has resumed. Some businesses, like the local furniture stores and a local deli that does a lot of deliveries, have been ticketed for parking violations while loading and unloading goods at their places of business. With no other way to access their stores, they are asking the City Council to establish special loading zones.
Jim Neustrom, owner of Valley Furniture, said he was unaware that he had been breaking the law for over 20 years by backing up his delivery van to the store entrance to pick up and unload goods. He said there was no other way to access the old building and he asked the Council to allow some sort of loading zone to be established. The owner of the Back Door Deli said that lack of access to her building also required backing in to the front entrance for deliveries.
After the recent Committee of the Whole meeting, a subcommittee meeting and a Council meeting on the issue, one thing is clear, and that is that there is little agreement on the issue.
One common remark was that some downtown employers and employees were the biggest violators. Others claimed that a lot of county employees are abusing the parking time restrictions and parking on the street all day. One man said that he had checked the county parking lot located near the courthouse every day for a week and that only 12 of the 32 parking spaces were being used. Another problem, according to some, is the lack of any enforcement against repeat offenders.
Some people disagree that there is even a problem. With 246 parking spaces in the downtown, they say, there is plenty of parking on side streets if Main Street is filled. Another person quoted the seating capacity of a handful of downtown restaurants that quickly adds up to more than the available parking spots.
Some people suggested that increasing the fine incrementally for repeat offenses would be effective.
Others suggested that a more positive approach was needed. For instance, instead of a “no parking over ninety minutes” sign in small print, a large, easy to read, pleasant looking sign that says “2 hours of free parking” would set a better tone.
Russ Lawrence, Director of the Hamilton Downtown Association, said that parking was a problem and that a moratorium on ticketing was worth considering. He said one problem with the current rule was that people were “gaming the system.” He suggested changing the ordinance to eliminate that possibility.
With no clear direction emerging on the issue, Councilor Mitchell proposed at the last City Council meeting to at least put a moratorium on issuing tickets for 30 to 60 days. He said it would give the Council time to figure out how to address the loading zone question and all the other issues involved and come up with an acceptable plan for enforcement. But the rest of the Council nixed that idea. Council President Jenny West said that having no parking restrictions during the busy holiday season would be “a nightmare.” Police Chief Ryan Oster said that issuing warning tickets would not work for very long once people realized they would not have to pay a fine.
With no moratorium in place and no special loading zones established, the ticketing and the discussion about it will no doubt continue.
In other business, the Council approved giving police officers a 30 cent per hour raise effective immediately. The original motion was to give the officers a 44 cent raise beginning on November 10. Council President Jenny West thought the raise was too much at once and offered an amendment to make it a 30 cent per hour raise effective immediately. That amendment was approved on a 3 to 2 vote. Councilor Ken Bell said that he saw no basis for any raise at all. He said it was not the Council’s job to define the amount of any raise. He said that job belongs to the Department and the Mayor. Councilor Joe Petrusaitis said that the procedure for setting the pay was outlined in the Council’s handbook and it was up to the Council to set the pay. Bell made a motion to amend the motion a second time, setting the pay raise at 10 cents per hour effective December 1. That proposed amendment was defeated on a 4 to 1 vote and the raise, as amended by West to raise the pay by 30 cents per hour effective immediately, was approved on a 3 to 2 vote with Bell and Mitchell casting the two dissenting votes.
A collective bargaining agreement between the City and the Police Department was approved unanimously.
The Council approved a contract with Deadwood Enterprises to build an information center at the cemetery. Councilor Joe Petrusaitis was reluctant to approve the contract since it was not put out to bid. The Mayor noted that state law only requires jobs over $80,000 to be put out to bid, although Council rules call for council approval of any contract over $10,000. The contract was approved on a 4 to 1 vote with Petrusaitis dissenting.