5.2. SR 09-17-2007 - Laserfiche WebLink

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ilk River Police Department MEMORANDUM TO: Mayor and City Council FROM: Jeffrey A. Beahen, Chief of Police DATE: September 12, 2007 SUBJECT: Downtown Parking Study -Permitting & Enforcement I have reviewed the parking study, and as this goes to Council I would like to offer some insight from the Police Department specific to the permitting and enforcement of both employee and resident parking. The parking study indicates that there is more than adequate parking for the downtown area to accommodate full occupancy of the new development. The study reflects that parking in the permitted area in June, when permits were free, and overuse was an assumption- while there was in fact almost half of the lot vacant and available during the surveyed tunes. Now that permits have a fee attached to them, the employee lot is used even less. Immediate feedback is requested from the Council regarding the permitting process, as next week the Police Department needs to start the round robin issuance process again. This is a very time consuming process, one which has previously angered a portion of the business community. I would advocate that the City Council direct staff to implement the issuance of yearly employee permits with a nominal yearly fee. They would be issued on the condition that the designated employee lot would be "first come, first served," with no guarantee that a permit would assure a spot in the employee lot. If an employee arrived and the lot was full, they would be responsible to find a spot and park in one of the outlying locations. When permits were free, large numbers of permits were issued, and a large volume of vehicles parked in the employee lot. The study however does not illustrate this use. I might suggest that part of that is the move by the Bank of Elk River back to their lot after construction, the move of some employees to peripheral parking areas, and the reopening of sections of streets that were closed fox construction. The City also moved the residential parking stalls across the street, freeing up those nine spots. By and large-we haven't experienced and availability issues with parking anymore in the King Avenue lot.