Downtown Paso Robles employees and business owners still have four designated employee parking lots—at least for another six months.
At the Paso City Council’s meeting on Dec. 17, the council decided to table its decision to eliminate employee parking after listening to public comment, despite city staff reporting that the permit program had a lack of demand and was more expensive to enforce than it’s worth.
Recently elected City Councilmember Kris Beal said at the meeting that the discussion over employee parking downtown had been going on for a very long time.
“Everybody’s exhausted and everybody’s kind of fed up. I want to acknowledge that at the same time, we asked for the stakeholders to come forward and give input,” Beal said. “What we’re hearing is that, as an organization, Main Street wants to keep some form of employee parking.”
The Downtown Employee Permit Parking Program was created in 2018 after the city received complaints that downtown employees and business owners were taking up parking spaces all day, making it difficult for customers to also access the area. The permit costs employees $5 per month to park in the 98 designated spots near 12th and 13th streets.
The city also later implemented paid parking in 2019, charging $2 an hour after a free two-hour period, then earlier this year it changed the fee to $1 per hour. After an uproar from residents, the paid parking program was eliminated in May, making all parking free.
The Dec. 17 staff report said that nothing is stopping employees from parking in the free spots and advised the council to eliminate employee parking and convert the four lots to additional free parking.
The report also stated that while decals for permit parking would be inexpensive, enforcing the permit system wouldn’t be. Currently, enforcement is used on a complaint-driven basis, and enforcement only occurs when a call for service is received, making effective monitoring difficult.
To effectively enforce the employee permits, staff suggested hiring a permit specific position that would cost the city more than $100,000 per year and noted this still wouldn’t prevent employees from parking for free elsewhere.
Resident Dave Nelson told council members that he had always been in favor of employee parking and believed the current system worked.
“The business owners clearly want to keep [the parking spaces] and are using them now. Those are the people. Those are your constituents,” Nelson said. “I’m asking you to listen to the people—that’s who you represent. Enforcement is not necessary. They’re self-enforcing.”
A local business owner said parking is too difficult to find without the designated lots.
“It’s hard to find parking after 10 o’clock in the morning some days, especially on the weekends, and especially if there’s something going on in the park,” she said. “So please, I’m just begging, don’t take away those lots.”
Councilmember Fred Strong said he worried about law enforcement having to enforce the permits. Instead, he suggested removing the legal restrictions for the lots, but leaving the permit signs up to prevent tourists or unknowing residents from parking in the lots.
“The one group that will definitely not park there in that case is the tourists, because they won’t know that it’s anything but what they see. So, the only ones who are going to take advantage are those of the public who actually listen to us or read what’s happening here,” he said. “Frankly, that’s a very small percentage.”
Mayor John Hamon said he was against the idea of removing the restriction but not the signs.
“I can’t believe the council would do something that, in my thinking, is unethical to leave signs up for law-abiding citizens to obey when you know we will not be enforcing them. Doesn’t that rub you guys a little differently at this point? Because to me if we don’t like a law, we change the law,” he said. “If we’re going to not make these any longer restrictive to employee parking, then it’s public parking.”
After deliberation, Councilmember Beal suggested tabling the council’s decision and creating a committee for community input before taking action.
“I know this is just torture for everyone,” she said. “There might be some nuanced solutions.”
With a 3-2 vote in favor, the council opted to return to the issue within the next six months. Δ
This article appears in Dec 19-29, 2024.