today's meeting of the parking advisory panel will include a visit from a charlottesville police sergeant to talk about the department's parking enforcement efforts (the lack thereof has been a longtime complaint from members of the panel)
parking advisory panel member joan fenton says her perception is that CPD was not writing any parking tickets downtown until people started talking seriously about hiring an outside company to handle parking enforcement.
the officer is quite defensive about the idea that an outside contractor would be brought in, saying the solution is to back city employees rather than outsourcing those duties the department can't handle.
parking advisory panel member kirby hutto says it only makes sense to outsource "low hanging fruit" like parking enforcement if the police department is stretched thin. sgt gibson says it's "insulting" to pay a third party to do the police's job.
the police department is also concerned that people will complain to the police department about tickets written by a private contractor, which would take up police time & resources - apparently CPD has no problem "making a ticket go away" if someone takes up a lot of their time
rick siebert clarifies that sworn officers aren't the ones writing tickets in charlottesville - it's CSOs (police dept employees who are not sworn officers).
[so why can't non-police personnel handle parking tickets?]
[so why can't non-police personnel handle parking tickets?]
this is a real let them fight scenario - downtown business owners demand parking enforcement from cops who don't want to do anything. truly a fascinating display between a defensive police sergeant (immovable object) and an indignant business owner (unstoppable force)
moving along to the utilization graphs for the downtown garages, but siebert says they're not worth talking about. "we're getting a little busier, not a lot busier." one garage reached capacity during an event in august, the first time either garage hit capacity in the last 3 yrs
repairs will be made to water st garage at a cost of $450k. you may see swaths of spots blocked off for the construction equipment/workspace over the next 3 months, but there's plenty of parking.
apparently all the long term parking contracts downtown are technically month to month - siebert says it's never been necessary, but they do have the ability to terminate your downtown longterm parking at the end of any given month if they decide they need the space
the city & county are still working through negotiations re: the parking spots the city promised the county in exchange for keeping the county courts downtown. siebert doesn't want to advertise the $100/mo parking in the jefferson st lot in case those are needed for the county
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