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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCC Minutes - 10/29/08 Work SessionM I N U T E S Eugene City Council Work Session McNutt Room 777 Pearl Street—Eugene, Oregon October 29, 2008 Noon COUNCILORS PRESENT: Mike Clark, Jennifer Solomon, Betty Taylor. George Poling and Alan Zelenka participated by telephone. COUNCILORS ABSENT: Chris Pryor, Bonny Bettman, Andrea Ortiz. Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy called the meeting of the Eugene City Council to order at 12:03 p.m. A. WORK SESSION: Downtown Parking Jeff Petry, Parking Services Manager for the Planning and Development Department (PDD), provided a presentation on downtown parking beginning with the City installing downtown parking meters in 1939 and the creation of the downtown parking exempt zone in 1948. He said the City of Eugene had converted from a customer-paid/meter system to a free parking system in 1972, and the expenses associated with the parking program were paid with business and downtown district taxes. He related that due to changes in the downtown business dynamics, and Ballot Measure 5, the City had switched back to a customer-paid program in 1992. He noted that the City had also instituted the first-hour and weekends-free policy for the three City-owned garages and the business validation program at that time. Mr. Petry reviewed the revenue and expenses of the parking program. He noted that the City spent $180,000 to maintain its structures in 2007 and was projected to spend almost $1 million on maintenance in the next fiscal year. He said the Parking Enterprise Fund was intended to be self-sufficient. He stated that the program currently had $4.8 million in revenue and $4.7 million in expenses, a $100,000 surplus, but a more long-term view indicated that the capital needs would deplete reserve funds within three years. Mr. Petry explained that the downtown area was a parking exempt zone; businesses were not required to provide minimum parking standards. He said staff had met with downtown business owners a few weeks earlier and had also met with Chamber of Commerce representatives, and members of Downtown Eugene Incorporated (DEI), earlier in the year. He reported that top level feedback was that there was a lack of information about, and understanding of, the parking system. He cited, as an example, that the hours during which meters must be used were set by the businesses adjacent to them and a business could call parking services to come and adjust the meter time for more or fewer hours. He related that business owners were also concerned about the lack of parking in the downtown area. He said the narrow street widths precluded having angled parking, which would accommodate more cars. He noted that another concern expressed had to do with people monopolizing parking spaces by feeding the meters. He explained that City code prohibited individuals from doing so, but this regulation was only enforced on a complaint basis. MINUTES—Eugene City Council October 29, 2008 Page 1 Work Session Continuing, Mr. Petry discussed some of the parking service practices of communities in other areas. He said the question was what constituted a good parking program. He related that the City of Eugene was considered good because of its mission: to supply, allocate and manage adequate, safe parking to meet the parking needs of the business and residential communities in a manner that supports transportation system needs, growth management policies and goals, and City Council and community goals. He stated that parking staff was working with the Eugene Water & Electric Board (EWEB) to provide electric car charging stations in the downtown area and in parking garages. He said the technology was now available for people to pay for parking via their cell phones. He also noted that the two development projects that were planned would bring the downtown parking to capacity. Mr. Clark expressed appreciation for the work Mr. Petry had done on the presentation. Mr. Clark said he had sought to hold this work session to discuss the metered parking in the downtown core area only. He wanted the discussion to be about how to make the downtown a more inviting and convenient place for people to visit. He asked for data relevant to only the on-street meters in the public safety zone. Mr. Petry responded that the meters in the downtown safety zone had brought in $470,000 in revenue in the previous year, approximately $900 per meter. He said removal of the meters would result in a $430,000 revenue change. He related that data indicated that if the downtown core was converted to monitored, free parking with time limits, the City would realize a 30 percent increase in the number of parking tickets in the downtown core. He explained that the downtown area had unlimited free parking in a smaller area in the 1980s and issued approximately 80,000 tickets at that time. He said in 1991, when the three-hour parking program had been instituted, the City had issued 91,000 tickets. He noted that the other metric was that the areas outside of downtown that were two-hour free zones generated approximately 30 percent more parking tickets. He predicted that citation revenue in the downtown area would increase by $40,000 to $50,000 if it was converted to two-hour free parking and this would offset some of the revenue loss from the elimination of the meters. Mr. Clark averred that meters were a solution to a problem that the City did not have as they were designed to keep people moving around. He did not think making sure people do not park downtown was one of the problems the City had. He wanted to investigate parking alternatives in order to best create a more welcoming downtown. Mayor Piercy asked if the City did some kind of accounting for how full parking spaces were downtown. Mr. Petry said that most days during the week there was 55 to 70 percent occupancy of parking spaces, but this varied by location. Mayor Piercy said she would be interested in knowing how full the parking lots were during the work week and on weekends. She noted that she found the Portland parking system to be very self-explanatory and accessible. Mr. Petry observed that Portland had a “smart card” system and Vancouver, Washington had a program called “easy park.” Regarding the latter, he explained that it was an investment in communication information to customers about how to park downtown. He said it would come down to prioritizing resources; in the capital budget there was a placeholder amount of $600,000 to consider signage and ways to communicate information better. Mayor Piercy felt there were “myths” in the community that the parking garages were unsafe. Mr. Petry stated that a security service was provided 24 hours a day, 7 days per week. He said he received daily reports of all of the activities of the security personnel. He related that most of the challenges were related to loitering and skateboarding in the parking garages, though there were some vehicle break-ins. He noted MINUTES—Eugene City Council October 29, 2008 Page 2 Work Session that parking services had a program wherein if something of value was seen in a car, a letter was sent to the car owner recommending that they not leave valuable items in their cars. Mr. Poling thanked Mr. Clark for bringing the issue up for discussion. He noted that Attachment C showed $1.3 million for parking operations and he wondered what that meant. Mr. Petry replied that it included all of the staff, including himself, parking officers, some maintenance crews and some community development. Mr. Poling observed that the results of the survey of the people who had businesses in the downtown area seemed to be “all over the map” in regard to whether or not parking should be free. He suggested they get a more focused group in order to come up with fewer options. He wanted to focus more on what should be done in the downtown area. He felt that at present there was too much on the table. He also wondered if there was a way to track the number of parking violations by repeat offenders in order to potentially increase fines for them. Mr. Petry responded that the technology was available, but not currently in place. He said it was possible to track when a vehicle had a warning. Mr. Poling recommended that the time on one-hour meters be increased on Willamette across from the Hilton. He felt that a person could not park and have a meal in that amount of time. Ms. Taylor declared that the free parking had encouraged her to park downtown but after the meters had been installed she had stopped parking there. She alleged that two business owners told her that was why they left the downtown area. She felt that a small amount of money meant a lot to many people. She wanted to know the costs of the meters including the people that check them. Mr. Zelenka thanked Mr. Petry for his work. He wanted to know the average time for which meters were set. Mr. Petry replied that it varied; typically banks had meters with 30-minute parking, while restaurants had meters with parking for one or two hours. In response to a question from Mr. Zelenka, Mr. Petry said the parking fund did not have a capital funding program. He explained that it had a capital plan and each year they looked at their resources and tried to “pick off” their highest priority needs. Ms. Solomon observed that the report indicated $180,000 in capital funds and wondered if there was a plan for these funds. Mr. Petry confirmed that the parking program had a plan. He said the engineering assessment report of the structures had just been completed. He explained that the expenditures in the previous year were related to commercial space changes and general capital for “patching concrete” and lighting replacement. He stated that the capital improvement plan (CIP) had the bigger items such as resealing entire parking decks which cost $300,000 for each and had not been done for the Parcade, estimated to be a future cost of $1 million. In response to a question from Ms. Solomon, Mr. Petry explained that an effective parking program included management, communication, enforcement, and adjudication components. He noted that in Eugene the Municipal Court served to adjudicate parking violations and employed five full time equivalent (FTE) positions to do so. Ms. Solomon noted that Mr. Petry’s presentation had included the projection that costs would exceed revenue in six years. She asked whether he meant that this would be an incremental decline. Mr. Petry affirmed this. Ms. Solomon asked what other options there were. Mr. Petry replied that the program could increase the monthly off-street parking rates. He said the daily on-street rate in the campus area had been MINUTES—Eugene City Council October 29, 2008 Page 3 Work Session increased from 75 cents per hour to $1 and this was projected to increase revenue by approximately $150,000. He noted that other ideas included looking at Boulder, Colorado and Portland, which had invested in downtown signage with parking communication and had experienced increased usage of the parking system. He stated that Portland also utilized multi-space meters which enabled people to use credit cards and resulted in a 40-percent increase in revenue in one year. He said Boulder also began using credit cards for payment and observed that credit cards were used in 70 percent of the transactions and that revenue increased by 46 percent. Ms. Solomon asked the City Manager if the City would continue to ask the parking program to contribute in excess of $500,000 to the General Fund. Mr. Ruiz responded that generally speaking the program would continue to be asked to do so, as were all enterprise funds. He explained that those funds purchased services from the General Fund. He said they also charged enterprise funds the equivalent of an “in lieu of” fee or franchise fee. Mr. Zelenka asked if there was a contribution to the capital fund for rehabilitating parking structures. Mr. Petry responded that the parking program did not build any reserves for capital replacement. He said they looked for the highest priorities and tried to “put it in the budget and make it work.” Mr. Zelenka complimented Mr. Petry for a “well-run program.” He noted that he was not enamored with the idea of reducing the revenue from the parking program with a free program. Mr. Clark suggested there be a motion to extend the time for the topic. He related that he had originally thought the council could direct the City Manager to come back with suggestions for ordinances, but he said a subcommittee convened to come up with solutions would meet that need. He reiterated that his intention was to create a downtown that was a better draw for people who live in Eugene. He felt that if one asked people in general, most felt that parking meters were a deterrent. He averred that the City should be doing more to incentivize activities that brought people downtown, such as the Farmers’ Market. He added his feeling that a change from metered parking to non-metered parking would bring increased revenue from citations and would reduce capital costs which would nearly offset the loss of meter revenue in the downtown core. Mr. Clark, seconded by Ms. Taylor, moved to form a subcommittee to come back with spe- cific recommendations. The motion passed, 4:1; Mr. Zelenka voting in opposition. B. WORK SESSION: Adoption of the Legislative Policies Document Ms. Taylor advocated for approving the Legislative Policies Document. Mayor Piercy expressed concern that councilors might not be ready to vote on the document without discussing it. Mr. Clark thought the document was fairly substantial. He said the council should talk about what it contained. Mr. Zelenka commented that he thought the legislative policies were “fine.” MINUTES—Eugene City Council October 29, 2008 Page 4 Work Session Mr. Poling said he was ready to take action because he had participated in the Council Committee on Intergovernmental Relations (CCIGR) meetings, though he was interested in listening to Mr. Clark and Ms. Solomon’s concerns. Ms. Taylor asked Intergovernmental Relations Manager, Brenda Wilson, to address the timeline. Ms. Wilson responded that she did not need the document “today” but wished to underscore that the 2009 legislative session was imminent. She said she wanted to be able to begin presenting the document to the legislative delegation in two weeks. Mayor Piercy asked if the councilors would be comfortable with passing the document and then discussing it. Mr. Clark indicated he would vote to approve the document so that it would not be held up, with the caveat that he would reserve the right to bring it back up for reconsideration. Ms. Taylor, seconded by Mr. Zelenka, moved to adopt the Legislative Policies Document. City Attorney Glenn Klein explained that if a councilor wanted to move to reconsider the motion, it would not be truly a motion to reconsider according to Robert’s Rules of Order unless it happened at the very next meeting. He said it could be brought up at a future meeting with a motion to amend the document as adopted, however. The motion passed, 4:1; Ms. Solomon voting in opposition. Mayor Piercy resumed discussion of parking policies. She suggested that Ms. Taylor and Mr. Clark serve on a subcommittee for the discussion of downtown parking. Mr. Ruiz believed that convening a subcommittee was a great idea. He said a basic assumption should be that the fund should be self-sufficient. He also said the subcommittee should consider what the boundaries of the downtown parking zone should be and whether the option to change the fines and fees should be exercised. Mr. Zelenka left the meeting at 1 p.m. and the quorum was lost. Mr. Clark agreed that the subcommittee should take those items into account. He asked for a history of the last five years of the carryover into the General Fund. Mr. Petry replied that it was 12 percent of the operating revenue, noting that it had been fairly stable in the last five years. He noted that in Fiscal Year (FY) 04-05 the parking program reduced the transfer and eliminated one .5 FTE position to balance the parking fund. In response to a question from Mayor Piercy, Mr. Clark said he wanted a lot of advice from outside the council but he hoped the subcommittee would be made up of only councilors. Ms. Solomon expressed a preference for having more than just councilors on the subcommittee. Ms. Taylor preferred having the committee include only councilors. MINUTES—Eugene City Council October 29, 2008 Page 5 Work Session Mr. Poling concurred. He added that he liked the City Manager’s suggestion. He also wanted to take a look at some of the new technologies for metering. Ms. Taylor observed that Mr. Poling’s comment assumed there would still be meters. She added that she had reservations about business owners being allowed to determine the length of time for parking at the parking meters. She opined that while it was good for the business owners to have people downtown, the parking was for the people coming downtown. She asserted that some people were getting tickets before their meter expired at the Saturday Market. Mayor Piercy suggested that the mission statement be revised to include the words “and customers” after “meet the needs of business.” She noted that she had heard from some business owners that parking control offices had told them that they could not plug a meter for a customer. Mr. Clark verified that business owners had been discouraged from helping customers pay their parking meters. Mayor Piercy expressed appreciation for Mr. Petry’s work. The meeting adjourned at 1:07p.m. Respectfully submitted, Jon Ruiz City Manager (Recorded by Ruth Atcherson) MINUTES—Eugene City Council October 29, 2008 Page 6 Work Session