Parking Issues Dominate Meeting

Special Finance Policy Committee
of the Whole Meeting Dec. 7

The meeting which had been advertised in the Bulletin as a Special Finance Policy meeting which was said to be dealing with the review of the Financial Plan, was basically a regular city council meeting with parking dominating the meeting. In fact, unless I slipped off to sleep, there was no discussion of the Financial Plan which is to set the course of taxpayers finance for 2010 - 2014.

While the lack of Financial Plan discussions was disappointing it was interesting to see some parking issues dealt with. The residents of Milton Street between Fitzwilliam and Franklyn got everything they hoped for, in that their street will become resident only parking from 8:00 am - 8:00 pm. The residents have been trying to get the city to relieve their parking problems for quite sometime. It would seem that civic workers and also those working at the RCMP office had been causing residents grief for ages by parking on this street for hours at a time. You have to wonder why it took council months and months to come to a seemingly very logical conclusion. But it does prove if you squeak enough you just might get some grease.

On the subject of parking, it seems that since the PNC parking lot gets little use, in spite of all those conferences, the city is going to make some of the empty parking available for those wishing to buy monthly parking. The cost would be $95 per month to use the PNC parking facility which seems like a bargain at $3 per day.

Parking Tickets Now $15.00

If you noticed it was cheaper to pay the $7.50 parking ticket rather than pay for parking, think again. The city has decided to raise the cost of a parking ticket to $15 from the current $7.50. This policy would seem counter productive if they are trying to encourage people to shop downtown.

On the subject of Special Finance Policy meetings, it seems there is nothing to discuss just yet, as I presume city staff is still coming up with ideas to hold the line on taxes. I wonder if they are looking at their own wages in the process??