Our View: It’s clear that parking enforcement is needed
downtown. But business employees need to be a part of the equation
for an equitable solution
Take a downtown plagued, according to business owners, by a chronic lack of parking spaces. Subtract the parking spaces monopolized by business owners and employees for eight hours or more. Subtract the parking spaces occupied by downtown residents.
Now subtract all the parking spaces in a two-block construction zone, for 10 months, until the streetscape on Monterey between Fourth and Sixth is complete. Add the cars of the construction workers employed on the project.
Result: parking jungle.
It is easy to see why City Council decided something had to be done. So far, they have decided to begin enforcing the long-ignored parking limits, allowing police to hand out $30 tickets to anyone who parks for more than two hours within a block of Monterey between Fourth and Sixth, between 7am and 6pm, Monday through Saturday. Enforcement is to begin April 1; no fooling.
On the table is the question of whether to provide residents with exemption stickers. Mayor Al Pinheiro favors such a parking sticker for residents but none for downtown workers. “The number one priority is residents,” says Pinheiro. “The number two priority is the shoppers.”
The many downtown shoppers of the editorial board thank him for his consideration, but would like to put in a word for the workers who sell us our vacuum cleaners, clocks and cappuccinos.
Granted, it is annoying to have to park several spaces away from our destinations when the nearest parking spaces are filled, nine to five, with the cars of employees. But this is Gilroy, not San Francisco or San Jose, and the answer may lie less than a block away.
The parking lots on Eigleberry are underutilized, to say the least. Why not issue permits to park in these lots to the downtown business owners for a nominal fee so they can hand out permits to their employees? Any revenues could be used as seed money for a new Downtown Association to fund further improvements to downtown.
True, residents should be able to park near their homes. And true, shoppers need to be able to park, or they won’t stop to shop. But employees need to be able to park reasonably near their jobs. The businesses cannot operate without workers. Shoppers cannot shop without clerks. A downtown without businesses is no downtown at all.
