City council's bungling of paid off-street parking downtown is a perfect example of how well-meaning councillors can do more harm than good when they make hasty suggestions without figuring out the implications first.
Last fall, mayor and council unanimously approved new - and significantly higher - monthly rates for paid parking downtown. They all loved the idea until residents who work downtown and rent parking spots started complaining. Suddenly, many of the councillors got cold feet and wanted to immediately roll back the rates that they thought were such a great idea just a few weeks earlier.
Now city council, in its earnest desire to fix a problem of its own making, has painted itself into a corner. The city's parkades are in urgent need of repair and maintenance work; the only easy source of funding is to charge users more. Passing those costs on to residents who work downtown and need a reliable off-street parking spot didn't work, so now council is suggesting phased-in increases of 25 per cent, 15 per cent and 15 percent over three years. Seems like a great idea, except for the unintended consequences.
Firstly, downtown business owners will have to make up the shortfall through the parking levy, since the repairs and upgrades to the Second Avenue parkade and the Plaza parkade have already been budgeted for 2015 and 2016 respectively.
Second, the 25-15-15 plan throws the entire price structure out of sync. Under the original plan, the monthly cost for a covered spot and a plug in the Second Avenue parkade went up from $48.66 in 2013 to $90 this year. Under the 25-15-15 plan, that user will be paying $80.44 in 2016. Meanwhile, the renter of an uncovered, no-plug spot at the Vancouver Street lot, who would have been paying $55 under the new price regime this year, will also be paying $80.44 per month in 2016.
What a mess.
Instead of throwing the problem back to staff to come back with other options and then making a thoughtful decision with all the "science" on the table, city council tried to fix the whole thing by themselves with numbers pulled out of the air and have just made matters worse.
Although he's certainly not alone in mishandling this file, Coun. Frank Everitt has been particularly off-base.
"We could have some cases where people would be paying some additional money and I don't think that's what people wanted to have happen," he said Wednesday. Unfortunately for the councillor, effort alone doesn't earn kids As in school, nor do bad decisions made with good intentions earn the favour of voters.
Everitt actually pushed for a 10-10-10 increase over three years but thankfully couldn't get support from his fellow councillors. He said he doesn't care what other communities in B.C. are charging for renting downtown parking spots, he just wants what's right for Prince George. Besides the fact that parochial statement ignores the merits of incorporating best practices from other communities into Prince George, it's the opposite of what Everitt practices in his day job.
As president of the United Steelworkers Local 1-424, Everitt goes to the bargaining table wanting the same increases other workers in other jurisdictions have negotiated for Prince George workers, but seems unwilling to apply the same rationale to charging local residents for city services.
Furthermore, Everitt, along with other members of council, moaned on Monday night about previous city councils not setting aside money to take care of old infrastructure. Yet Everitt also promoted the fact that the next municipal council can decide whether the 15 per cent increases in 2015 and 2016 will be enough. In other words, past councils should have done more to help him but as a current councillor, he's unwilling to do more to help the next city council.
To be fair, Everitt was initially reluctant to solve this problem on the fly but he didn't stick to his guns and insist his colleagues at least hold off passing a motion until the numbers had all been worked out.
Worst of all, city council is still not done talking about this issue.
To bring the 25-15-15 plan into effect, they have to pass a bylaw at a future meeting. No doubt some members of council will want to tweak the bylaw at the 11th hour and they'll be right back to square one on off-street paid parking, winging it and hoping for the best.
