HomeMy WebLinkAbout08-12-18 Public Comment - G. Cox - Parking at Southside ParkFrom:Chris Mehl
To:Agenda
Subject:FW: Southside Park Parking Issue
Date:Sunday, August 12, 2018 2:00:07 PM
Chris Mehl
Bozeman Deputy Mayor
cmehl@bozeman.net
406.581.4992
________________________________________
From: webadmin@bozeman.net [webadmin@bozeman.net]
Sent: Sunday, August 12, 2018 1:40 PM
To: Chris Mehl
Subject: Southside Park Parking Issue
Message submitted from the <City Of Bozeman> website.
Site Visitor Name: Gretchen Cox
Site Visitor Email: mgcbigsky@gmail.com
I am writing to make you aware of an ongoing issue with regard to parking at Southside Park. There is NO
PARKING for Southside Park, and most of the nearby street parking is restricted to nearby residents. The sparse
available parking is further restricted to 2 hours. Southside is a large park with 4 tennis courts which have also been
lined to accommodate 8 pickleball courts. There is a rather large group of seniors (and younger) who play pickleball
at Southside Monday - Friday. Finding a place to park is not easy. If you are lucky enough to find one within a few
blocks, the 2-hour parking restriction severely limits your time to play. Now this is a real windfall for the city, since
the local police have already figured out that these seniors, who are there to get some exercise and stay healthy, are
easy marks for parking tickets if they run a couple of minutes (or more) past the 2-hour time limit. It it makes it easy
for them to fill their ticket quotas and generate revenue for the city. We are very easy marks for them. But, we, the
healthy seniors and taxpayers, are getting tired of it! Now, not being one to just complain, I am also going to offer
some solutions. If you increased the parking time limit to 3 hours, that would give us enough time to park the car,
walk to the park (carrying a 25-lb net), set up the nets, play for 2 hours, tear down the nets, walk back to the car
(carrying the 25-lb net) and drive away. Or, if that isn’t lucrative enough for you, you could issue us (at a cost, of
course) parking permits, similar to what you now issue to nearby residents, that would allow us to park for 3 hours.
As a substantial taxpayer, I think this is a reasonable request and a better alternative than to continue to attack the
senior community. Please feel free to contact me on my cell at 702-249-7875 if you would care to learn more about
this continuing issue. I look forward to talking with you.