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HomeMy WebLinkAbout06-11-09 Parking Commission, Minutes Bozeman Parking Commission Meeting July 9th, 2009 at 7:30 a.m. Upstairs Conference Room of City Hall Parking Commissioners in Attendance: Larry Bowman Chris Pope Pam Bryan Tammy Hauer Chris Nauman Steve Schnee City Staff in Attendance: Shannon Fish, Parking Clerk Paul Burns, Parking Manager Laurae Clark, Treasurer Anna Rosenberry, Finance Director Rich McLane, Lieutenant Chris Kukulski, City Manager Guests in Attendance: Brian Caldwell, Thinktank Action Items: ? Double check May minutes and approve the July Minutes as well. ? Possibly raising the ticket prices from $15-$20 :00:09 7:32:20 7:30 – Call to Order Chris Pope called the meeting to order at 7:32 a.m. 0:02:20 7:34:32 7:31 – 7:40 – approve May 15 and June 11 minutes Pam made a motion to approve the minutes from May 15, 2009 and Tammy seconded. The minutes were approved. Larry made a motion to approve the minutes from June 11, 2009 but, Pam had some questions about the board development and the discussion that took place at the last meeting regarding this. Chris Pope wants to hold the approval of the minutes for this meeting and we will review this discussion and make sure it is noted in the minutes. The motion was tabled till the next meeting. 0:05:51 7:38:02 7:40 – 7:55 – Manager’s report, Paul Paul gave everyone an FYI that we might see an unfriendly article from Tom Burnett in the Chronicle. Tom has requested financial statements for the Garage. Paul suggested the Parking Commission be proactive and write a positive article about the garage. Chris Pope would like to wait and see what comes of this request and would like to talk to Tom personally about his request and agenda. Paul brought with a picture of a bike rack that the DBA would like to propose putting on Bozeman Ave next to Bangtail Bike's new store. This rack would take away one parking space downtown, however would serve up to 14 bikes. Parking bikes on the sidewalks on Main Street is a problem during the summer months due to the volume of bikes. If this rack is used and is a positive addition to downtown, they would then install an additional rack on the southeast side of Main Street next summer. Brian Caldwell would like to know if there is a chance that we could put a bike rack in the yellow zone as an alternate location since it is lower and does not block the vision of oncoming traffic the way a car would. This rack will come powder coated and it will be removable during the winter months. It could possibly be put into the garage in the winter as a covered bike areas for those who brave the elements. Chris Pope would like to vote on the idea of taking up a parking space for this rack. This would be a test or a model project. Pam made a motion to approve the installation of this bike rack which would possibly eliminate one parking space and Tammy seconded the motion. The motion was approved. 0:16:48 7:48:59 1. Signage update Everything is all prepared for the P signs. The crane that they were going to rent was not returned so this should be finished next week as soon as a crane is available. 0:17:24 7:49:35 2. Mural update Paul has spoken with a student at MSU and the woman who did the mural on the East wall of Heebs. Paul has $2,000.00 for this project and so far it has just been discussions. Paul will be meeting with another student next week as well. Paul has asked that the artist bring a sketch including colors to the Commission for approval before they will be selected. 0:19:33 7:51:45 3. Free day of parking usage For the Grand Opening we handed out over 600 free coupons for the garage. Only 79 out of the 600 were used at the garage. At $2.81 a piece, it showed that people were staying over 6 hours in the Garage. Paul noted that this might have been due to employees using the free cards and not the public staying for a short time. 0:20:20 7:52:31 4. Quilt show There is a woman named Beverly that would like to use the garage as a second choice for a quilt show in August if the Emerson gets rained out. The morning of the show is when they would decide if they need the garage. Paul stated that there is some cleaning that needs to be done and barriers would need to be installed if this event was to take place. He has given Beverly the fee of $200 plus the $35 assembly permit fee. She was okay with these costs and will be contacting us at a future date. 0:23:28 7:55:40 5. Revenue increasing ideas Anna Rosenberry had requested the Bozeman Parking Commission consider ways to increase revenue prior to budget approval for FY10. The budget deficit for FY09 is approximately $116,991 thru May 31st. And next year’s budget is also showing a deficit. Paul listed a number of possibilities for increasing revenues. 1. Lengthen the timed parking in the garage. Currently the hours are 8am-8pm. Paul proposes that we go 24/7. There is no reason not to charge at midnight or on Sundays. Make change January 2010. 2. Increase the daily maximum. Currently, the single day maximum is $5.00. The extreme case is if someone stays from 8pm on Monday to 7:59 am on Wednesday--36 hours, they pay only $5.00. That is because the meter isn't running from 8pm-8am. Paul proposes that we don't have a maximum. The meter could continuously run so there would be no maximum or we could increase the maximum to another amount. Make this change effective January 2010. Brian Caldwell brought up the idea of the perpetual leases again for the garage. With those spaces not being used there is an option to allow these leases to happen. Also the open office space that was supposed to be Paul’s office could be finished and sold for some revenue as well. 3. The next option is to increase the amount for a lost ticket. Currently the lost ticket fee is $5.00 based on the single daily maximum. 4. Another option is to increase the cost of an overtime ticket. Right now it is $15 and Paul is suggesting that we make it $20. Rich noted that if we do an increase that we do one on every type of violation and not just the overtime ones. Rich has also suggested that we put animal citation on our tickets. He has suggested the fine for animal violations is $100 but if you come in within 7 days then the ticket cost would only be $50. This might be something to consider with the parking tickets as well. 25% of the tickets written are overtime violations and if we increased the revenue it would be $16,000 per year for this increase. Rich also brought with a handout about the tickets that we currently have in the city. This handout showed the amount of tickets that are being written and for how many we are collecting on and what that fine is currently. Chris Pope would like to know if there is any reason that we should not raise these ticket prices. Chris Pope would like to know if the group feels comfortable with doing this fine raise. This needs to be on the agenda for the next month’s meeting. Chris Naumann would like to see the fiscal impact that these increases would have on our budget. 5. Increase the cost of the monthly permit holder’s fee. It was noted that the original cost did not discourage the majority of our permit holders from signing up initially. Paul proposes that we allow the current permit holders to renew at the current price if they pay annually. Those choosing to pay monthly or purchase or renew after January 1st would pay a higher fee. 6. Install pay by space meters in the surface lots. This would allow someone to pay for as long as they wanted and they would then put a card on their dash to show how long they have to be parked there. If they went over their time limit then they would receive a citation for overtime parking. This option would require an initial outlay of capital. Other possibilities are the boot ordinance, selling advertising in the garage, increase downtown parking enforcement to include north-south streets past Mendenhall and Babcock. Also increase hourly rate in the garage. Examples could be .40 per 30 minutes or .25 per twenty minutes and finally to sell the Carnegie lot. Chris Naumann spoke about a discussion he had with Mae Nan Ellingson from Dorsey and Whitney LLP regarding the perpetual lease idea. Chris had thought that since the Federal money purchased one quarter of the building they would only have a say in that portion. But, that is not correct. By accepting the Federal money the whole building is considered a Federal project and we cannot easily do a perpetual lease. During construction the retail spaces had to be carefully separated to make sure they were not included on any applications or bills otherwise those spaces would also have been considered part of a Federal project. Chris Pope believes that for now we are on hold with the perpetual lease idea, but he thinks that it needs to stay on the agenda as a prospective idea. Chris would like to prioritize the above revenue increasing ideas and would like to see raising the ticket fines at the top of the list. Paul was asked to add the projected revenue from each idea to help illustrate which options would be most beneficial in climbing out of the red on the budget. Steve Schnee would like a separate meeting to talk about all of these ideas. The 23rd of July at 7:30 a.m. was chosen for the meeting to discuss all of these options. 1:03:20 8:35:32 8:20 – 8:35 – Carnegie Lot, Chris Kukulski Chris Kukulski joined the meeting to discuss the sale of the Carnegie lot. It is on the short list for the relocation of Fire Station #1. Weston Development made a proposal and we are in a 90 day process with them. Their offer was not just for City Hall but it would be for Fire Station #1as well so that they could do a redevelopment on the whole half block. This would include building a new fire station in the core area of downtown Bozeman. We have to have a fire station close to down town and near to where it is right now. The City Commission has not seen this or any rendering of the project yet as well. We are not at a point yet to discuss when or what is happening. To put something on the Carengie lot at this point is just a concept and nothing has been decided yet. Anna had another idea as well and in talking with Westin they know that the land is free and that it is a parking asset but they had thrown out the idea that if their project was made to include a public parking area then this would allow the city to swap lots for the purpose of having parking in the downtown area and not losing a valuable lot downtown completely.. One of the first sites that they suggested was the Harrington’s site on Wallace. They also looked next to City Hall, the Kenyon Noble building and more as well. Chris K. noted that this will not get solved this morning but just to get the idea out there and again he wants everyone to look at the properties to see which ones could be a possible location. A long shot that was brought to Chris would be to take the old armory and make it the police department but then the parking would be a problem. Brian Caldwell would like to know what the net gain is for this fire department. This is not about having to have a new fire department and it definitely is about the economic standard and the chance to have that corner re developed. Brian Caldwell believes that if you have two assets and you are trying to make a profit that you would work out a way to share some of the shortcoming and the profits in the long run. Chris Naumann believes that the City and the Commission should come together to think of three sites for this change to happen. The overwhelming opinion by the Parking Commission is that the Carnegie lot should not be used for the Fire Station #1. That lot is a valuable asset that could really add some density to downtown if sold to the right developer. 1:27:08 8:59:19 8:35 – 8:55 – P&L, Paul/Laurae Chris Pope stated that the format of the P & L statement submitted was good. For the next meeting Chris Naumann would like the P & L statement to include the proposed revenue increasing ideas to help judge the potential of those choices. 1:27:08 8:55 – New business/Public comment Anna spoke to the commission about ethic trainings and she brought with a new draft of a Financial Disclosure Statement that is required by Sect. 2.01.100 of the City Charter for all employees and boards that have substantial financial responsibilities for their budgets. The Parking Commission is stated as one of the boards that does have a lot of financial responsibility. Everyone on the board will have to fill out this form in the future once the form is approved by the City Commission. 1:27:08 8:10 – 8:20 – Commission turnover (Chris P., Larry, 2009; Steve, Chris N., 2010; Pam, 2011; Lisa, 2012; Tammy, 2013) Chris Pope wanted to let everyone know that he will be re-applying for the Parking Commission. He also stated that Tammy did re-apply already and that Larry will not be with the Commission anymore. Chris thanked Larry for all of his time. He is very appreciative of all the time and wisdom Larry has brought to the table over his many years as Commissioner. Larry stated that he would be happy to meet with the commission whenever needed. 1:27:08 9:00 – Adjournment The meeting was adjourned at 9:15 a.m. Respectfully submitted by: Shannon Fish Parking Clerk