by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
It’s the downtown parking debate, take two, in the City Council this week.
The Council’s Finance Committee approved Monday a compromise on raised rates in City-owned downtown parking garages. The current version, which still requires approval from another Council committee as well as the full Council, cuts rates by 10 percent for all users, bringing the new $80 price down to $72.
City employees would receive an additional 30 percent discount while state employees would receive a smaller discount of 10 percent. The discounts would be pared back over the next three years, leaving the market in control of prices when the subsidies sunset.
The proposed legislation is based on a compromise brokered by a Council subcommittee led by members Elaine Brown and Sharon Copeland. A similar bill was shelved during the Nov. 22 City Council meeting.
The debate over parking subsidies and who should receive them has been at times contentious as it has unfolded before the Council. Rates at City-owned lots jumped Dec. 1 to $80 monthly from previous rates ranging from $25 to $50.
Since plans for the new rates and accompanying discounts for City employees were announced, the Council has heard from a steady stream of state, federal and private employers who want similar discounts.
The Council has been forced to weigh those requests against the impact on the City’s finances. Extending the City discounts to state and federal employees would cost the City about $132,000 next year.
The current bill would cost the City about $48,000. Brown said her subcommittee work in arriving at that number had been a thankless task. Nobody was happy with the current compromise, she said.
“It’s a classic example of no good deed goes unpunished,” she said.
Finance chairman Daniel Davis told representatives from the State Attorney’s Office, who were arguing for larger discounts for the SAO, that the City was stretching its budget to help employees not on its payroll.
“We’re taking care of our employees,” said Davis. “It would be nice if the state and federal government would take care of their employees.”
But tight budgets at the state and federal level make that unlikely, according to leadership at the SAO and the Duval County Courthouse. That leaves the City as the only option to mitigate the cost increase.
Some on the Council would prefer to offer no discounts, letting the market dictate where people park and how much they pay.
That crowd found something to like in a last-second proposal advanced by Council member Richard Clark that would have taken away all subsidies but allowed for free parking at the King Street and Sports Complex commuter lots.
The proposal was eventually withdrawn when it was determined that the City couldn’t offer free parking at the King Street lot, which is owned by the JTA.
But several members liked the idea of substituting free parking at the City’s commuter lots, most of which are positioned at downtown’s perimeter, for parking discounts at the more conveniently located City lots. Davis said he’d look at the idea to see if it could be incorporated into the City’s parking policy.
Offering subsidies to downtown lots works against the City’s policy of encouraging use of mass transit and commuter lots, said Council member Lad Daniels.
“We need to stop sending mixed signals,” said Daniels. “We say we want people to use mass transit, then we offer subsidies to make it cheap to park downtown.”
The current discount plan would go into effect March 1.