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City will discuss downtown parking

For the second time in three months, city officials began discussions about possible changes to laws governing parking in Vandalia’s downtown business district.
They will continue those discussions after getting some input from local residents and business owners.
Back in March, the city council began talking about possible law changes when Alderman Andy Lester passed on a complaint from a downtown merchant.
Lester said that a Sixth Street business owner asked him to pass along his complaint about tenants of downtown apartments parking in the area in front of his business for extended periods of time in the evening.
At that March meeting, as aldermen began considering changes to downtown parking laws, City Attorney Jack Johnston suggested that the council pull together and review all of its parking laws.
Aldermen agreed to do that, but had not discussed parking until Lester voiced a second complaint from that business owner.
“He’s looking to protect some of his scarce parking,” Lester said.
Police Chief Larry Eason explained that a two-hour parking limit downtown is on Gallatin Street only.
Lester asked about the possibility of extending that limitation to the one-block sections north and south of Gallatin.
“If it’s OK for Gallatin, it should be for the other streets,” Lester said.
But Mayor Rick Gottman cautioned that that may not be what residents – including business owners – want.
“We can put together an ordinance (for that), but it covers everybody,” Gottman said, noting that tickets could be issued to patrons of the businesses.
And, Johnston added, the business owners themselves.
Gottman said that those subject to tickets would include people who are in downtown businesses, including restaurants and bars, “for three hours.”
Alderman Mike Hobler, who was not present for Monday’s meeting, expressed that same concern at the March meeting.
“We’re liable to hurt some businesses more than help them,” Hobler said.
Lester told Gottman at Monday’s meeting, “I was just searching for some consistency. I think it needs to be consistent.”
He added that a change could work, due to the fact that the enforcement of the ordinance is complaint-driven, referring to the possibility that city police would not receive complaints about customers parking in one spot for more than two hours.
But, technically, Eason added, changing the law could have a direct affect on those who would extend the parking limitation.
If a city council meeting lasts more than two hours, Eason said, city officials who park along the 100 block of South Fifth Street for the meeting would either have to move their vehicles or be subject to tickets.
Unlike the discussion in March, the one on Monday night did not include the possibility of stepping up enforcement of the two-hour parking law on Gallatin Street.
At the March meeting, Gottman said that the complaint he hears most often is about downtown merchants and their employees parking in front of their businesses, and other people’s businesses, for extended periods during the day.

 

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