JAMESTOWN — It may cost more to park in downtown Jamestown, cost more for parking tickets and have less, if any, free parking.
According to a proposal from Jamestown Mayor Eddie Sundquist, which will be discussed at Monday evening’s City Council work session, parking violations lag behind other similar-sized cities. His proposed increases would start Jan. 1, 2021, if approved.
“This would bring us to a lower level, but increase revenue and fine structure,” Sundquist said in his recommendation to Council.
Under his plan, parking violations fines for meter violations, meter feeding and overtime in zone violations would increase from $10 to $15. They were last increased from $5 to $10 in January, 2013. Failure to pay would double the fines after 20 days and triple them after30 days.
From March 2019, through February, 2020, the average fine collected in Jamestown was $19.12, compared to the national average of $32.40, according to numbers provided to council by Sundquist.
In addition, Sundquist seeks to raise the hourly parking rate at metered locations to $1 per hour,
“Parking meter revenue in 2019 was $156,804. This resolution could potentially double-parking meter revenue,” Sundquist’s proposal said.
As well, Sundquist wants council to approve adding parking meters to 150 parking spaces in the Central Business District which are currently free parking. He also suggested increasing the fees to local businesses from $300 to $600 for a Business Owner Parking Permit. Starting January 1, if approved, the city would eliminate the two-hour free zone parking.
“Approximately 150 spaces would now have meters in the most highly trafficked area of downtown. The effects on parking revenue could potentially be enormous, especially as the parking spots with the most value and use will now have meters,” Sundquist’s proposal said. “The City has enough meters in storage to have every spot metered and could quickly deploy the meters into the free zone for operations starting Jan. 1, 2021. Increasing the business owner permit fees to be in line with garage rates will increase the amount collected there.”
The current so-called courtesy parking zone runs from West Fourth Street and Cherry Street to Pine Street between West Fourth and West Second Street. The current two-hour free parking runs from North Main Street to Institute Street along East Second Street.
The full proposal from the city is posted below:
[pdf-embedder url=”http://new.wnynewsnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Jamestown-Parking-Changes.pdf” title=”Jamestown Parking Changes”]
So because people in jamestown are better about avoiding parking violations and the city makes less money off of them then the national average youre going to raise the costs of everything from the actual violation to the cost to park even the businesses that have parking lots? Politicians are a joke anymore