City considering appointments to parking board

Posted on March 19, 2024 by Jenn Rowell

The city’s Parking Advisory Commission has not met since October 2022 and has struggled with a quorum.

There were several resignations and changes, creating several vacancies.

The city has advertised for multiple positions on the PAC.

Katie Pung (Batterbee) resigned from the PAC in March 2022 and the city began advertising for that position.

Then Barbara Nutter resigned and Becky Sullivan’s term expired in 2023.

Kellie Pierce was promoted to executive director of the Business Improvement District and moved to the ex-officio member spot on the PAC.

With all of those changes, Katie Hanning is the only appointed member remaining on the board with Pierce as the ex-officio member.

The PAC should have five members appointed by the City Commission with the sixth ex-officio member appointed by the BID.

The PAC advises the city on parking issues with in the parking districts

The city received applications for the vacancies from: Inge Buchholz, Jayson Olthoff, Jesse Wagner, Carol Berg, Nathan Laidlaw, Gina Winters and Sherrie Arey.

Arey is an appointed member of the BID and will need commission approval to serve on both boards.

Commissioners will be asked during their March 19 meeting to appoint four people to the PAC.

They could also schedule interviews with the applicants, ask staff to interview applicants and make a recommendation or ask staff to continue advertising for other citizen interest.

During their Jan. 2 work session, commissioners briefly discussed downtown parking.

Commissioner Joe McKenney said he heard about parking enough on the campaign trail last year that he thought they should talk about it during a work session in terms of “how did we get here” and challenges.

Whether something should be done or not done, McKenney said, “I don’t have an idea.”

Mayor Cory Reeves said it’s something to look at as there’s a financial cost and that he thinks free parking would bring people downtown.

Commissioner Shannon Wilson said she’s heard people talk about handicapped parking options downtown and Commissioner Susan Wolff said there’s a segment of the population that isn’t tech savvy so the kiosks are difficult for them and that she’s looking forward to talking about parking.

The kiosks were installed in March 2021 on Central Avenue. They take payment via smartphone app, credit card, cash and coin. Their purchase was approved by commissioners in November 2020.

The old meters remain on the side streets in the downtown district that take coins and can also be paid via the smartphone app.

Some improvements were made to the city’s two parking garages, but they need further repairs, according to city staff.

In 2018, the commission approved $470,000 in tax increment financing funds to improve lighting and security at the garages.

Tom Micuda, former deputy planning director, told The Electric in January that about $183,785 remained of TIF funds for the garages that included upgrading the gate system in the north garage and dealing with water intrusion problems in both garages.

In early January 2024, the north garage had sold 45 percent of available spaces and the south garage had sold 25 percent of available spaces for monthly passes.

Surface lot monthly passes were:

Lot 8 at 317 1st Ave. N. was 92 percent sold
Lot 7 at 109 1st Ave. S. was 40 percent sold
Lot 4 at 600 1st Ave. N. was 55 percent sold
Lot 2 at 125 1st Ave. S. was 26 percent sold, only monthly passes available

Information on the number of spaces and rates for garages and surface lots is available here.

The city parking fund is funded through meter revenues, permit fees and fines. The fund doesn’t receive general fund, or tax revenue support, with the exception of of the 2018 TIF funds and the fund received some COVID relief dollars to replenish it after the COVID shutdown depleted the fund and it’s reserves.

At the close of the last fiscal year, which ended June 30, 2023, the fund’s total revenue was $593,350 and the total expenses were $684,294, Micuda said.

The City Commission passed an ordinance in September 1947 to install meters in downtown Great Falls.

Then during a public vote during the 1949 general election, the majority of voters supported keeping parking meters after a 18-month test run.

The ordinance also established two-hour parking time limits and set parking rates at 1 cent for 12 minutes; 2 cents for 24 minutes; 3 cents for 36 minutes; 4 cents for 48 minutes and 5 cents for an hour. Meters were enforced between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. except Sundays and legal holidays.

In 2008, the meter rates were increased from 25 cents per hour to the current rate of 50 cents per hour. In 1947 the rate was 5 cents per hour, which if adjusted for inflation to today’s dollars is equivalent to 55 cents, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s inflation calculator.

In 2014, some parking rate adjustments were proposed, but commissioners took no action.

In 2017, commissioners spent $20,000 on an additional contract with SP+, the city’s parking contractor, to analyze the parking program and develop a strategic plan. That budget item grew out of a conversation between Craig Raymond, city planning director at the time, and Greg Doyon, city manager.

Commission approves parking fee increase; training requirement for elected, appointed officials

Early in the 2017 budget process, Raymond told Doyon that he wanted to hire a full-time parking director since he didn’t have the time to devote full attention to the parking program. Raymond and his then deputy Tom Micuda oversaw the department tasked with managing large and small developments, permits, administration of the safety inspections, code enforcement, zoning, sign code, land use, Community Development Block Grant program, historic preservation, Civic Center facility management and more.

Some of those programs have since been moved to other departments.

Since at least 2013, City Commissioners and the city manager have been adamant that no general fund support be used for parking and the program is funded by meters, parking permits, tickets and fines. Parking fines previously went into the general fund since the program was managed by the police department when it was established in 1947. In 2012, the city moved the fine monies to the parking fund, since the program is now managed by the planning department.

In 2019, commissioners approved new meter rates and fine structure for the downtown parking district from a proposal developed by the Parking Advisory Commission through a roughly two year effort to develop a strategic plan. The PAC at the time was comprised of downtown business owners and representatives from downtown groups.

Downtown parking enforcement was suspended from March to June 2020 due the COVID pandemic and remained free until 2021.

Members of the PAC and city staff said in 2021 that they had fielded complaints from business owners about construction workers, downtown employees and residents parking in front of their shops or restaurants all day, taking up spaces for their customers, as the downtown was reopening from COVID.

Billings, Bozeman, Helena and Missoula also have paid parking in their downtown areas.

Bozeman is often mentioned in Great Falls when it comes to parking.

Parking in downtown Bozeman is free for two hours on the street and garages, but it’s $1 thereafter for the garages.

The city is looking at building a new garage because “many downtown business owners had expressed an interest in a new parking garage to add capacity to the system and attract new development such as a hotel to downtown,” Takami Clark, Bozeman’s communications manager, told The Electric.

Parking is largely free and the first parking garage cost about $12 million, of which $8 million was funded through the TIF, which is tax revenue, and the other $4 million was funded through a Federal Transit Administration grant. Current parking operations are funded through permits and enforcement fines, Clark said.

Bozeman actively patrols downtown with license plater reader technology and their “enforcement schedule will vary to try to catch illegal parkers at different times of the day, “Clark said.

An overtime parking ticket is $20 in downtown Bozeman.

Meter fees in downtown Great Falls are $1 per hour and the fine structure is: one time courtesy ticket, $5 for the second violation, $10 for the third violation and $20 for the fourth and each subsequent violation in any given calendar year.

Bozeman has been talking about parking quite a bit in recent years and conducted an occupancy study in 2021 and another count in 2023, for which the consultant is finishing up their report.

The Electric asked whether Bozeman had discussed suspending enforcement and Clark said that they have “but when it happened during COVID it was pretty messy downtown.”

Bozeman suspended parking enforcement for about eight weeks from mid-March to mid-May, but resumed for the summer season, she said, and moved to more mailed citations rather than placing all of them on the vehicle.

Bozeman installed parking meters in the late 1940s, like Great Falls, Livingston and Billings.

The original rate was five cents, Clark said.

In the early 1980s, business owners downtown requested the meters be removed to compete with the mall and other new development in the city, Clark said.

Bozeman restarted the conversation of instituting paid parking in 2022, but paused that proposal in 2023, though parking has been the topic of recent meetings.

For more background on downtown parking discussions:

Downtown parking free for holidays

Library, safety group hosting session on large, abandoned vehicle parking enforcement

City approves fines for RV parking; using COVID dollars to replenish some city funds

City addressing parking complaints from meal delivery drivers

City approves 3-year downtown parking contract [2021]

City considering free parking for ADA spots downtown [2021]

Parking program resumes generating revenue, begins COVID recovery [2021]

City adjusting for Passport Parking wallet function [2021]

Paid parking resumes downtown April 2, new pay stations will be installed mid-March [2021]

How to: A guide to the new pay stations in downtown [2021]

City working on more security upgrades, permanent LPR for garages; addressing motor vehicle records access issue [2021]