Seymour City Council has decided not to raise fees for two-hour parking violations after more people spoke against the proposed increase than in favor of it at a council meeting Monday night.

The council voted 5-1 against the change, which would have made tickets go up to $10 if paid within 14 days or $25 after. Tickets will remain $3 if paid the day they are issued or $5 after.

It was a victory for those who publicly opposed the increase, including downtown business owner Alan Killey with Hair Force Beauty Academy.

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Killey said because his business is service-oriented, customers can be there for more than two hours and shouldn’t have the hassle of dealing with a parking ticket.

He also said there isn’t a lack of parking downtown because there aren’t enough businesses to take up all of the parking.

“There’s plenty of parking within half a block of anybody that says they don’t have parking because our block is empty,” Killey said of the 100 block of West Second Street.

Killey said by issuing parking tickets, the city is driving business away. He named several businesses that have closed over the years, including Java Joint, which closed Wednesday.

“When nobody is left open, you’ll have all kinds of parking,” he told council members.

But the decision not to increase two-hour parking fees left another business owner, Greg Reutter of Tiemeier’s Jewelry, wondering if he will be able to stay downtown.

Reutter said his customers struggle to find parking near his store in the 100 block of North Chestnut Street.

Parking tickets are not punishing customers because business owners can sign off on them so the customer doesn’t have to pay, he said.

“The repeat offender is the one who is going to get the $10 ticket,” he said. “It’s a win for the city. It’s a win for the downtown retail customers so that they can have easier parking. It’s a win for the retail businesses down there.”

Councilman Brian D’Arco, who introduced the amendment, was the only supporting vote. Councilman Dave Earley was absent from the meeting.

“I think if we don’t do something now, as the downtown does fill up, people want to park somewhere close to the business they want to go to, and I don’t think it’s very fair for owners and employees to be parking there all day long and making customers for other stores walk much farther,” D’Arco said.

The vote reversed the council’s initial approval of the change back in July. At that time, four councilmen, John Reinhart, D’Arco, Matt Nicholson and Earley, were in favor, and Lloyd Hudson and Jim Rebber were against. Councilman Shawn Malone was absent from that meeting.

The city has been trying for years to come up with ways to improve the downtown parking situation. With several free public parking lots downtown, most council members agree there isn’t really a problem.

Hudson said there are only a couple of blocks on Chestnut Street, between West Second Street and St. Louis Avenue and Tipton Street and Bruce Street, that have parking issues.

“The rest of it is wide open,” he said. “I feel higher parking fees won’t necessarily bring more people into town.”

Reinhart agreed and said the problem he sees is that service and retail businesses are competing for parking.

“I wish we had the parking problems that we had back in the ‘60s and ‘70s,” he said. “Downtown was full, and there was no parking available. I would like to see the downtown boom again, but I don’t think this is going to help it.”

Malone said he doesn’t think the city should regulate parking at all.

“I don’t know why we take on that role,” he said. “We don’t regulate them anywhere else in town. We’re just asked to do so downtown. So we constantly have this back and forth of ‘We don’t want it, we do want it, we want more, we want less.’ In the meantime, this council for years and probably for years to come will try to figure out that answer. I don’t think tickets are the answer.”

But having sat through meetings about parking for the past two years, Malone said he’s also tired of the city doing nothing about it.

“In the beginning, I think I was for raising the fines in the hope that it would spark some change, but I don’t think that is what will happen,” he said. “I think we will end up killing our downtown, which I don’t want to see.”

Nicholson said he was shocked to find out in discussions that most people would rather pay for parking upfront than pay a fine for being there too long.

“I’ve had six or seven people tell me they’d like to see parking meters all the way around,” he said. “That way, we’re all paying.”

Phyllis Nantz said she goes downtown on occasion to shop or eat and doesn’t think the city is helping by issuing parking tickets.

“Why on earth would anyone come to Seymour downtown to shop and end up getting a parking ticket when they can go out to Walmart or Home Depot or any other place outside of the immediate center of Seymour and park for free all day, every day?” she asked. “If you want to build up the downtown, don’t charge people for parking.”

Business owner Heather Grube of Beautiful Chaos agreed.

She said her business, also in the 100 block of West Second Street, attracts a lot of customers from outside of Seymour, and parking tickets have been a problem.

“When those people are coming here and they don’t know the tickets can be written off, it has been a problem for us,” she said.

She doesn’t think there should be any tickets issued, especially since there are so many empty buildings.

“We have seven vacant buildings on our block,” she said. “I can’t imagine if Seymour were actually built up to what people hope for it to be, the kind of issue we would have with the parking and what that’s going to look like for downtown Seymour.”

Grube said it’s actually a good thing for customers to not be able to park in front of a business because that way, they get to see other businesses while they walk to their destination.

“I’m a firm believer that if you create good service for people, it doesn’t matter how far they have to park, they’re going to come to you,” she said. “I think the ordinance should be completely done away with. I think there should be no parking tickets. I don’t even think you can say there is a problem until every parking spot and every parking lot is full. That’s when there is a problem.”