Mayoral Hopeful Attacks Paid Parking

— Mayoral candidate Dan Coody criticized the city’s “aggressive” enforcement of parking around Dickson Street on Thursday and said it should back off a planned parking deck.

“It’s not that people mind paying to park. We’ve been doing it all our lives,” he said. “It’s the system we have in place that’s overly aggressive. It’s driving off business and giving our brand in Fayetteville a black eye.”

Coody held a news conference Thursday in what was the first formal volley fired by the former mayor in his bid to retake the helm of city government. He lost the position to Mayor Lioneld Jordan in 2008.

At A Glance

Fayetteville’s Parking Prices

Entertainment District:

Monday-Friday: 50 cents per hour from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. and $1 per hour from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m.

Weekends: 50 cents per hour from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. and $1 per hour from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m.

Downtown District:

Monday-Friday: 25 cents per hour from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Enforcement patrols 126 hours a week.

Source: City Of Fayetteville

Jordan and Coody are the only two announced candidates for the office. Filing for municipal offices starts July 27.

The city implemented a paid parking system on and around Dickson Street in 2010 to generate money to support a long-term bond issue to build a parking deck.

Jordan said the city plans to finance the deck with up to $6.5 million in bonds. He said the cost adds up to about $10 million with interest. The bonds will be repaid with parking fees and fines over the next 25 years.

Coody proposed development of more on-street parking around the area as a way to reduce the size of a parking deck. He said using parking fees and ticketing revenue to pay for the deck will commit the city to an inflexible parking system for decades.

“If they sell these bonds, we’ll be locked into giving tickets,” he said. “I’m not sure a parking garage is worth it.”

Coody said the city needs more public input.

Jordan, who was at the Arkansas Municipal League convention in Hot Springs on Thursday, said there will be “plenty of time” for public input before the bonds are issued.

“Right now we’re looking at locations and we won’t take that to the council until August,” he said. “We’ll have at least three council meetings before then where the public can weigh in. If the City Council wants to have more public input sessions, I’m fine with that.”

Coody said he was frustrated by the number of parking citations issued in the entertainment district, which includes 760 parking spaces on and around Dickson Street.

According to the city’s parking and transit department, 22,775 tickets have been issued and 3,061 have been voided between Aug. 22, 2010, and Sunday.

The program, including fees, has generated $1,621,066.

Jordan defended the process that led to the parking program, saying the elected City Council voted to adopt it after much public input.

“We’re not in some big hurry to issue these bonds like everyone thinks,” Jordan said. “We’ve been talking about this since 2009. We’ve had 16 public meetings over six months, we took it to the City Council and it was passed. As mayor, whatever is passed by the council, the administration enforces that ordinance.”

Jordan said even though developments such as the Divinity Hotel and Condos and a 2,200-seat addition to the arts center haven’t come to fruition, there’s still a need for parking — now and in the future.

“If you have parking spaces filled 208 days out of the year, and the University of Arkansas’ student population has gone from 17,000 to 23,000 and you have another large (apartment) complex going in on Lafayette Street, then you have to think about the parking system as a whole for the city,” he said.

Coody said he would develop a uniform parking system throughout the Dickson Street and downtown areas and use revenue to improve sidewalks and add tree buffers between streets and sidewalks.

He also said he’d like to develop a system that includes meters near each parking space, rather than the kiosk payment system in use now.

“If we took out the kiosks we just bought, it would be a waste of money,” he said. “That’s why I’d like to call in some professionals and have a big public meeting to discuss these issues. At this point, there’s no examination of where we are; we’re just moving ahead. Soon it will be too late.”

The mayoral election is Nov. 6.

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