PORT ANGELES — For some, it’s been like a game.
Move your car parked at a curb in downtown Port Angeles one or two spaces after the two-hour limit expires, and you evade a $25 parking ticket.
But it may be game over after Jan. 1 under a “move-to-evade” parking ordinance amendment that received its first reading at a City Council meeting last week.
The amendment would impose a $25 fine for moving a car to evade a parking fine unless drivers parked their vehicles at least in the next block.
It and a second amendment that would eliminate no-time-limit on-street parking for drivers with disabilities and replace it with a four-hour limit will get a second reading followed by possible adoption by council members at their regular meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 2, which will be at 6 p.m. in chambers at City Hall, 321 E. Fifth St.
The proposal is the result of a plea the Port Angeles Downtown Association board of directors made almost a year ago, in November, to then-City Manager Kent Myers asking the city to develop the move-to-evade policy for curb-side parking.
“Since there have been cars downtown, there have been complaints from customers not being able to find parking places in front of businesses and from business owners complaining about other business employees in customer parking areas,” downtown association Executive Director Barb Frederick told council members.
“This ordinance is not the perfect solution, but we feel it can go a long way to help with a problem that the board and I hear complaints about weekly, if not daily.”
Mayor Cherie Kidd said she has “heard complaints for years” about the problem.
According to the Main Street Program, through which the PADA receives $20,000 annually for economic development, a parking space generates $41,600 a year in gross sales for businesses open 40 hours a week if a customer parks for 30 minutes, spends $10, then leaves, Frederick said.
“We feel it’s a step that unfortunately has to be taken,” Frederick said.
“It’s the only solution we have been able to come up with.”
A parking enforcement officer patrols downtown, marking tires to gauge how long cars are parked and writing tickets when they exceed the limit.
“The only reason we have to do an enforcement is because asking [drivers to abide by the limit] has not done us any good,” Police Chief Terry Gallagher said.
“The last thing we want to do is write tickets,” he said.
There is no parking enforcement after 6 p.m., and officers will work with business owners and employees who are wary of walking to a vehicle that might be blocks away in the dark after closing up shop, Gallagher said.
“We are very flexible when it comes to parking enforcement and exceptionally lenient,” he said.
“We’re not going to force someone to walk in fear.”
The police department also has received numerous complaints about vehicles displaying disabled cards, decals or license plates parked for lengthy periods for days and sometimes weeks at a time, mostly in front of the Lee Plaza low-income apartments facility.
Pam Tietz, the executive director of the Peninsula Housing Authority, which owns the plaza, told Gallagher that there are many options for parking for Lee Plaza tenants, Gallagher said.
Tietz did not return a call for comment Friday.
Deputy Mayor Brad Collins suggested an eight-hour limit for drivers who are disabled.
“It is a real hardship for some people just to get around,” he said.
“Four hours parking would at least allow that space to be used for a customer at some point,” Frederick responded.
Gallagher said Friday that if the amendment is adopted, the city will send out letters to Lee Plaza residents to inform them of the change.
Long-term, non-curbside parking is available downtown to Lee Plaza residents for $15 a month.
Other residential permits are $25 monthly, Frederick said.
“We did make an exception for Lee Plaza,” she said.
Residential permits and non-residential permits — which are $15 a month — are available at the front desk at City Hall, 321 E. Fifth St., according to the PADA website, http://tinyurl.com/8huagkx
Three-hour free customer parking is available in off street parking lots throughout downtown.
Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
