Not Holding Our Breath

Fargo’s Parking Commission was not very interested in the message some 600 of you sent them in petitions opposing the new 90-minute Saturday parking ordinance on Broadway downtown.

Yes, they heard from citizens at their regular early morning meeting in October. They heard from folks who organized the petition effort. At the end of the meeting they decided to carry the discussion over to the first Friday in November.

Come November 6, again at 7:45 a.m., the Parking Commission met and, wouldn’t you know it, the 90-minute Broadway enforcement topic was not even on the agenda.

At the end of the meeting, the commission asked if there were other issues to be discussed. Well, yes, in fact there were.

Long story short, we are disappointed the Parking Commission effectively skirted this issue. While they say and may even believe they are open to public feedback, the truth is that feedback falls on deaf ears.

In October, Parking Commissioners wanted to question the wording on the petitions passed around and also printed in HPR. Their contention was that it was misleading, in that it referred to Saturday 90-minute enforcement downtown, as opposed to spelling out that enforcement would be on Broadway only.

Our contention is that the Parking Commission’s decision was based on a very flawed survey of just over 50 downtown businesses, and that their ultimate decision was based on a very small number of businesses who actually said they wanted further parking enforcement downtown on weekends. They suggested that we publish a new, more “accurate” survey. We offered to comply with this request, given that they put a moratorium on Saturday ticketing while we collected more data. No takers.

We gave them our interpretations of their survey that resulted in the new ticketing procedures on Saturdays on Broadway. Ok, so?

We asked them to please listen to the 600 folks who signed petitions protesting the new Saturday. They said they appreciate hearing from people and will weigh this feedback in their decision-making process. Or something like that.

We got nowhere. The horses were already out of the barn. The law was already in place. We were more than a day late and a dollar short.

The Parking Commission let the people down on this one. They fixed a problem that did not exist, and in fact, likely helped create other new problems, like a plugging up of avenues on Saturdays, while successfully helping to empty out Broadway on a new weekend shopping day, to the detriment of most businesses.

From what we have gathered, one downtown business got this ball rolling over supposed parking problems on Broadway on Saturdays. The city’s survey was then interpreted to implement that change, even though only a small percentage of those businesses surveyed actually wanted Saturday enforcement—with more opposing such enforcement, in fact. The 90-minute ticketing sailed though the Parking Commission and was assured passage when placed on the City Commission’s consent agenda.

We’d like to see a genuine respect for the voice of 600-plus people. We don’t see it in the Parking Commission, and that is disappointing.

While we wish the City Commission would reverse this action, we are not holding our breath.

Meanwhile, with Sunday business activity on the rise in Downtown Fargo, we wonder how long before the Parking Commission applies the same logic and extends enforcement through Sundays. Might as well keep the ball rolling. What’s 15 bucks here and 15 bucks there?

Thumbs down to the Parking Commission for this one.

HPR Growth

We would like to toot our own horn for a minute here. Beginning with this issue, we will have surpassed the 10,000 mark of HPRs distributed in Fargo-Moorhead-West Fargo each and every week.

Exceeding the 10,000 threshold means we’ve increased our local presence by nearly 50 percent in less than half a year in the local market. You won’t read that in the local daily paper, but you will read it here in HPR.

Thanks to our readers, advertisers and extended family for this continued growth in particularly challenging times.

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