COLUMBIA, 11/14/10 (Beat Byte) -- A
contentious debate
between Columbia city managers and Mayor Bob McDavid (left, with Alisa Warren, Executive Director of the Missouri Commission on Human
Rights) about transferring revenues
from parking meters and parking garages into the city's long-suffering General
Fund comes down on the side of the Mayor, say national trends and a noted expert
on city parking.
Parking in Columbia is big business. City Hall has a
virtual monopoly on downtown parking, with meters on every street, a garage on
nearly every corner, and a parking behemoth arising like the alien mother ship
from the movie Independence Day overshadowing every building in its
path.
McDavid sees parking revenues as untapped citizen benefits
and wants
to use a portion of them for general public services. But senior
city managers see parking revenues as more funds they alone control and -- if
past shenanigans are any guide -- can shell game into activities of their own
choosing.
Staff report, please
A City Council staff report scheduled for this
Monday's meeting prepared by departing Columbia finance director Lori Fleming
hems and haws about McDavid's proposal, repeatedly emphasizing "legal covenants
posed by bond restrictions" and other staff-speak for "we don't like the
Mayor's idea."
The report throws around a lot of numbers, threatens
"drastic increases" in already high parking fees if Council tampers with
the current system, and concludes with a staff review of similar cities in
Missouri and the Midwest. Fleming finds -- of course -- that most other cities
deposit their parking fees into a parking fund rather than a General
Fund.
But parking funds are behind the times, says UCLA urban
planning expert Donald Shoup, author of The
High Cost of Free Parking -- a book Heart Beat readers may recall from an earlier story that had
assistant city manager Tony St. Romaine reading and touting it.
Shoup advocates what McDavid seeks: "Return parking meter
revenue generated by the district to the district for the district."
"To help create great streets," Shoup says, "a city should
return parking revenue to the metered districts to pay for added public
services. The added funds can pay to clean and maintain sidewalks, plant trees,
improve lighting, bury overhead utility wires, remove graffiti, and provide
other public improvements."
In Columbia, such public improvements are mostly the
purview of the General Fund.
Making parking pay
Shoup cites Austin, Texas; Redwood City, California; and
Pasadena, Calif. as cities wisely using parking revenues for
public services. "Pasadena devised a creative parking
policy that has contributed greatly to Old Pasadena's revival. It uses Old
Pasadena's parking meter revenue to finance additional public spending in the
area," write
Shoup and San Mateo County Transit District
urban planner Douglas Kolozsvari.
Other cities are following suit, making parking pay for
other city services. This month, the Pittsburgh City Council unveiled a
pension bailout proposal to renegotiate a
revenue-sharing agreement with the city Parking Authority, which -- like
Columbia -- receives virtually all parking meter
revenue. Under the new Pittsburgh ordinance, revenue
increases in meter rates would go to the city pension fund, not the parking
utility.
Faced with tight budgets, several
other cities are looking to tap parking revenues, including
Harrisburg, Penn.; Los Angeles; and Miami, where city leaders want parking
revenues to replenish reserves.
RELATED:
Turning Small Change into Big
Changes
by Donald Shoup and Douglas Kolozsvari
City Staff report on parking revenue for Monday
night
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