By Jessica Keller, The Courier-Herald
If Buckley City Council members can work out a compromise to satisfy both the council and business owners, downtown Buckley may have one or two 15-minute parking signs on Main Street.
The request for two 15-minute parking spots along Main comes from Movies Plus owner Barb Gagner, who is interested in moving her business into the old antique and auction building from its current location near state Route 410.
As Gagner told council members at the March 9 council meeting, she wants two spots near the entrance of her business to be designated 15 minute parking to make it easier for customers, especially families with children, to access the video store, without having to cross a sometimes busy Main Street. She stated two business owners close by already gave permission.
Council members, however, initially seemed hesitant to grant the request of designating even two spots of Main Street's very little parking as 15 minutes only. All parking spots on Main Street are currently good for two hours.
Councilman Randy Reed said he thinks two other businesses have mentioned wanting restricted parking in the past, and the council had previously talked about restricting the already limited parking, the difficulty of enforcing 15-minute parking and the possibly dangerous and difficult precedent the city could be setting.
As an alternative, council members asked Gagner if the hours of the 15-minute parking could be restricted to only certain hours, possible to allow the lunch crowd that dines at the restaurants on Main Street to park. But Gagner said the hours she would need the parking open would be from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.
The issue has been sent to the Public Safety Committee for review, and the committee is expected to meet sometime this week. In the mean time, two spaces behind the building have been designated 15-minute parking.
City Administrator Dave Schmidt said, while some council members will most likely push for one parking spot to be designated 15 minutes, staff has proposed another plan as an alternative compromise.
The alternative plan proposed to designate one or two parking spots across the street as 15-minutes, but near all the businesses that would benefit from 15-minute parking as they do a lot of drop-off/pick-up business, like the video store.
In that way, Schmidt said, the city can be more business friendly, as well as fair to more than just one business owner, not singling any one out.
If the council were to allow one business owner to make such a request to designate parking, others in the future may also make the same request, but to have a couple of parking spots designated as 15-minute all over town would leave parking "spotty" and would be "an enforcement nightmare" Schmidt said.
"The city has the responsibility to be as supportive to business as we can," Schmidt said, adding the city also can't amend the city parking regulations every time a new business comes in. "That's the whole idea - to have consistency and conformity. There has to be some compromise on everybody's part."
Jessica Keller can be reached at jkeller@courierherald.com
