HomeMy WebLinkAbout07-23-09 Parking Commission Minutes
Bozeman Parking Commission Meeting
July 23rd, 2009 at 7:30 a.m.
Upstairs Conference Room of City Hall
Parking Commissioners in Attendance:
Chris Pope
Lisa Danzl-Scott
Pam Bryan
Steve Schnee
City Staff in Attendance:
Shannon Fish, Parking Clerk
Paul Burns, Parking Manager
Laurae Clark, Treasurer
Rich McLane, Lieutenant
Guests in Attendance:
Brian Caldwell, Thinktank
Action Items: N/A
0:00:00 1. Lengthen the timed parking in the garage to 24/7 or 24/6.
Currently we are charging for parking in the garage 12 hours a day. Paul would like to go to 24/7 or
24/6. The annual revenue right now is projected at $15,975. With the increase the projected
revenue would be at $22,525. The difference per year would be about $7,000. Most of the people
who use the garage do not exit late at night. There would be no extra cost except for signage to
change the schedule.
The commission took a straw vote and everyone was in favor of 24/6. Tammy made a note that she
would like this change to be permanent and not to have to come back in 6 months and change
something again. She believes that a change all at once would be better than doing this at different
times.
January 1st, 2010 was discussed as the possible starting date for this change.
0:06:47 7:49:28 2. Increase the daily maximum.
Currently, the single-day maximum is $5.00. Paul would like to discuss increasing the daily maximum
fine. This number would become obsolete though if we choose to go 24/6. The clock would not stop
running. Currently at 10.5 hours the clock stops ticking and the price to pay is just the $5.00. We
would charge 24/6 and then not have a daily maximum.
The Parking Commission decided that it would be best to eliminate the daily limit all together.
0:09:29 7:52:09 3. Increase the amount for a lost ticket. Currently the lost ticket amount
is $5.00, based on the single-day maximum.
Right now the lost ticket fee is $5.00. In the month of June there were about 10 lost tickets total. To
date in July there are 12 lost tickets already. Brian Caldwell believes that increasing this item would
be a negative idea. He believes that people are walking around and there is a good chance to lose
your ticket when shopping in the downtown area.
Chris Pope does not support the idea of raising the price to $40.00 as was suggested at the last
meeting. He believes that people are being honest and really losing their tickets at this point. He
would like to watch it to see the numbers of lost tickets in the future.
Chris believes that we stay the course and postpone this till the last minute before raising rates and
see how many lost tickets we have.
Paul suggested that the lost ticket fee could be closer to the daily rate of $11.75. The group
decided that a tentative $10 will be the new choice for lost ticket fee.
0:18:09 8:00:24 5. Increase price for monthly parking on surface lots and Bridger Park
Downtown. Currently surface lots and levels 1 – 4 in garage are $35/month. Basement in garage is
$45/month. All customers get 10% discount if pay through the end of the year.
Paul brought with a spreadsheet of the permit prices at this time. At our current usage the garage is
bringing in about $48,204 per year. With the projected 2010 budget we would bring about $9,000
more to the revenue by raising the prices to the original fee that we had in 2008. This was $45 for
the main levels and $55 for the basement.
Steve would like to note that yes we could increase the rate, but he also believes that we can use
some creative ideas to get more people into the Garage. Instead of raising the rates he believes that
we need to do some marketing to try to go from 100 permits to 200 or whatever improvement that
we can get. If we got 50 more people in the garage then we would raise our revenue right away.
Chris agreed with Tammy about the idea of keeping the prices the same. Here we are talking about
raising the prices and we don’t have enough people in there currently to justify this raise. He would
like to see this held off for one more year.
Lisa thinks that it might be good to wait a year since we have not gone through a winter yet. Chris
believes that we come in and say that you can renew at the old rate but if you are a new leasee then
you would be in at the higher price.
Rich adds from a marketing standpoint that you need to have a bone to throw to these people, to
say that yes, we are changing some ideas but you have to let people know that these permitees in
the garage will be offered at the same price.
Steve would like to make a note saying that we should try to double the number of people in the
garage in the next 15 months but to leave the rates the same. The group decided to hold the rates
till January of 2011 and to start marketing the garage more.
This was a majority vote by the Parking Commission.
0:36:18 8:00:49 4. Increase the amount of an overtime parking citation from $15 to $20.
Paul would like to discuss the increase of overtime parking citations. He would like the overtime
violation tickets to be raised from $15 to $20. The other violation that Rich would like to see raised
is the $25 5-day ticket to $30 dollars.
Rich wanted to note that yes other people in the state of Montana are charging less for these
citations but they also charge for their parking in the way of a meter. Rich would like to see us offer
a reward for these ticket increases and that we offer the ticket at $20 if you pay within 10 days and
then if you don’t pay then the ticket would automatically go to $30.
Greg Sullivan and Rich spoke this week and Greg stated that he will be working on the boot
ordinance this coming week to get things started again.
Tammy also noted that getting another officer downtown would increase the revenue as well. Rich
believes that with the boot ordinance, the first person booted will be on TV and the news will be all
over it. This hopefully will bring other people in to pay instead of getting booted and the other fines
assessed.
Steve noted that some communities in our state put all of their officers out on to the streets to do
the ticketing. Rich noted that this would not work with people around him and above him.
Brian believes that we should increase the ticket fines at a different time then changing any fines
for the garage. These two issues should be kept separate.
The group is in favor of increasing the fines. Steve made a motion to increase the overtime
parking and other fines from $15 to $20 and the five day violation to go from $25 to $30. The
other violations will be left where they are at this point in time. Tammy seconded and the motion
was approved.
0:54:24 8:18:58 6. Install pay-by-space meters for hourly parking in surface lots.
On installing pay-by-space meters in the hourly lots Paul recommends charging from 6am till 8pm at
a .25 cents per 30 minutes. The first 30 minutes would be free. This would be the same price as the
garage. On an average of 100 cars per day, we would see an increase of $5,000 a month increase in
revenue. Quotes for the machines to be put in would be around $10,000 per machine. An annual
increase in the revenue would be around $60,000.
Steve believes that this is a valid long term strategy. This would allow the consumer to park
wherever they would like downtown and still have 3-4 hour parking options. He just doesn't know if
now the time to go forward with this idea is.
Brian believes that we should leave Main Street alone and that we would just do these machines on
the surface lots. He definitely agrees with Steve on this, but the question is when we would
implement an idea like this and do we have enough funds to go forward with something like this.
Chris believes that within the next few months that the 20/20 plan is going to change a few ideas,
but we need to bring along the public to let them know exactly what is going to happen. Chris would
like to see this idea held off for a little while but he knows that it will take a lot of thinking and some
new brainstorming.
Steve would like to propose getting some hard numbers to implement this system into the city.
Chris would like to propose that maybe we have a work session in the future with Rich McLane to
discuss the idea of speaking about hiring people to write tickets in the future. The people writing
the tickets would not be city employees but they would be people hired from an outside source.
On the last page Paul noted that he has been approached by a downtown company to put a sign in
the garage for them to promote their business.
Tammy made a motion to lengthen the timed parking in the garage to 24/6 at the current rates,
to eliminate the daily maximum and to change the lost ticket fee to $10. She proposes we hold
the rates on the permits for the garage till 2011. Finally not having any additional charges for the
surface lots. These changes would commence on January 1, 2010. Pam seconded the motion and
it was approved.
Steve would like to setup a goal setting session to start thinking of some other ideas. He thinks that
our marketing goals and everything need to be talked about more on a one-on-one basis.
The next meeting will be August 18th at 7:30 a.m. We will discuss the remaining vacancy on the
board and begin lining out strategic plans for the Commission.
Respectfully Submitted by:
Shannon Fish