Parking ordinances get first ‘no’ vote

WASHINGTON — City Council members continued to move through readings of several changes to street and parking municipal codes at their regular meeting Tuesday night. While most items advanced without a hitch, changes to Chapter 69.13, regarding snow ban parking and snow emergencies, received a non-unanimous vote.

Council Member Bethany Glinsmann was the lone vote against that proposal’s second reading. The proposal would automatically enact snow emergencies, rather than rely on mayoral declarations, and would double the price of parking tickets for cars left on the street during snow events.

Glinsmann said downtown residents had nowhere to go.

“I am going to ask the same question I’ve been asking since we started,” she said. “Where are people who don’t have off-street parking supposed to park their cars in the event of snow … I did some scoping of the public parking lots for the downtown area. The one by the post office has 32 spots. The one by Marion Avenue Baptist Church is a little hard to count because it’s not well-painted, but around 20 spots. So a total of 52 spots, and there’s way more than that many apartments on the square and the super square.”

With a handful apartment renovations in the works downtown, Glinsmann said her concern would worsen with time. She also said the issue extended beyond the downtown area.

“On East Main, there’s a block of houses with only one driveway, and they can’t all park in the one driveway,” she said. “This is an issue that effects lots of areas … I agree with the intent of this, I want our streets cleaned quickly and efficiently, but we have not solved the problem of, ‘Where do the cars go?’ We just not park and pretend they disappear.”

Police Chief Jim Lester said that problem was not unique to the proposed changes.

“It would be no different than it is right now, even if you don’t pass this ordinance,” he said. “If we declare a snow emergency the way the code is currently written, those vehicles would have to be moved. Here, we’re giving a hopefully three or four month notice to locate someplace to move their car off the street in the event of snow … I think it’s up to residents to reach out to different locations and make arrangements for that parking.”

Lester said officers would do everything in their power to avoid unnecessarily imposing the fines.

“Our goal isn’t to write tickets, our goal is to get the cars out of the way so they can clean the streets,” he said. “If they’re not clean, we’re going to deal with the accidents that happen as a result … Last year, an officer grabbed the keys from an elderly lady and moved her car for her because she was sick, and couldn’t come down and move it and gave us permission to drive it down the street and out of the way.”

Council Member Elaine Moore said the lack of off-street parking was a problem for residents to address themselves, not the city.

“It is not our responsibility to supply a person a place to park their vehicle,” she said. “You purchased the vehicle, you have to take care of it … if they choose to live downtown, they may have to walk a few blocks. It’s a choice that they make.”

Several businesses with parking lots of their own were mentioned at the meeting, including Fareway and drive-up banking services. Still, Mayor Jaron Rosien said that might not be the perfect solution.

“It will make their snow removal difficult,” he said. “I find myself reiterating that our citizens are our customers, and we should think of them that way … it’s no fault of their own that we’re looking at this ordinance.”

The snow ordinance will move to a third reading at the next regular council meeting, after the 4-1 vote Tuesday night.

Other parking code changes advanced with less pushback.

A series of no-parking zones passed its third and final reading, enacting one-sided parking on Green Meadows, East Tyler Street, Campbell Drive and a stretch of North Fourth Avenue, as well as smaller no-parking zones scattered around North Marion Avenue, West Third Street and North Iowa Avenue, among others.

Another set of changes to the rules governing parking for certain vehicle types passed its second reading, scheduled for a third and final review at the next meeting. Those changes bar commercial vehicles and 40-foot truck-vehicle combinations from parking on city streets overnight, but would not change the rules for motor homes and travel trailers.

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com