Honorable Council Members
What part of the housing proposals will pay for maintaining our dispersed parking access for our commercial downtown?
Housing downtown is a serious issue, and your efforts with staff are serious. Unfortunately, the subject of the existing retail parking - the district created six decades ago to foster economic activity downtown - does not appear to be getting serious concern in the proposals.
The simple fact that all three respondents have left open the funding of our existing parking count - I recall about 560 spaces dispersed in the three lots - suggests that the designs are smoke and mirrors. This may be unfair, but to be this far into the process and still leave such a critical component unresolved reminds me of the pension tsunami - the taxpayers are on the hook for what our “decision makers” could not figure out.
Please know that the movement to restrict such projects to voter approval is not NIMBY, nor reactionary. It is a healthy concern of "adults in the room" wanting the wishful thinking of our housing cheerleaders to undergo calm-minded scrutiny. It’s not a blockade, it’s just reasonable.
Henry Riggs
Callie Ln
