Seymour City Council’s retail development committee wants the public’s input on downtown parking.
After years of discussing the same issue, the council is taking another stab at trying to address concerns brought up by downtown business owners.
Some of those issues include business owners and employees taking up customer parking, people violating the two-hour parking limit, lack of regular parking enforcement and the low cost of parking tickets.
A public forum is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. July 15 at the Gaiser Park shelter house.
Facilitating the discussion this time around are Councilmen Chad Hubbard, Bret Cunningham and Matt Wheeler.
“We want to open it up not just for business owners downtown,” Hubbard said. “We want the public to also have input because they are the ones doing the parking, so why not give them the chance to speak about it?”
Hubbard said voters should have the right to make decisions instead of the council making decisions for them.
Anyone who is interested in sharing their thoughts, concerns or suggestions but can’t make the meeting or who doesn’t feel comfortable attending the meeting due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic can email comments to Hubbard at [email protected].
“There isn’t a bad idea out there,” Hubbard said.
Having a new council look at the issue may lead to ideas that haven’t been brought up in the past.
“It’s an opportunity to reevaluate the issue and see if there is something we can come up with,” he said.
The committee has met on its own with Mayor Matt Nicholson and Police Chief Bryant Lucas to discuss the matter.
“There have been a lot of ideas thrown out,” Hubbard said. “It’s always good to have public input because it’s not about me or one person. It’s about all of us. We want to make things better for all of us.”
Hubbard said having someone from the police department enforcing parking more regularly has helped some, but it doesn’t curb all of the problems.
“Basically, we only enforce it in the spring and summer,” he said. “It might be something to look at enforcing all year.”
He also said many people just aren’t aware parking lots downtown are free and open to the public. Additional signage may help with educating people on where they can park without getting a ticket, he said.
“A lot of people think they are business-owned parking lots, and I think letting the community know that they are public parking lots would help,” he said.
With the amount of parking lots available, Hubbard said he doesn’t believe lack of parking is the problem.
“I think it’s a perception that we don’t have enough parking,” he said. “People will park a mile away in the parking lot at Walmart and walk, but when you get downtown, people expect to park right in front of the door.”
But no matter what the city does, Hubbard said it won’t make everyone happy.
“We’re going to do the best we can and listen to the business owners and the public that visits the downtown area to come up with the best solution that we feel and they feel is going to best suit them,” he said.
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Downtown parking public forum
Where: Gaiser Park shelter house
When: 6:30 p.m. July 15
Anyone who is interested in sharing their thoughts, concerns or suggestions but can’t make the meeting or who doesn’t feel comfortable attending the meeting due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic can email comments to Seymour Councilman Chad Hubbard at [email protected].
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