Regarding parking fines, I was at Pine Center Mall Saturday afternoon, parked in the “Drop Off Zone Only” lane, gone maybe 5 minutes, came back and there’s a $25 ticket from the City of Prince George on the window. How does this work that the Mall has the City doing tickets on private property?

And speaking of fines, I’ll pay the one referred to above, but I read on here that the city cannot enforce parking fines? I remember at one time they would take people to court to collect on them…How come they can’t collect now?

contractor. Are you sure that it was a drop off zone and not a **Fire Zone**.

If its a Fire Zone then I suspect the City would write the ticket.

Regarding parking fines, I was at Pine Center Mall Saturday afternoon, parked in the “Drop Off Zone Only” lane, gone maybe 5 minutes, came back and there’s a $25 ticket from the City of Prince George on the window. How does this work that the Mall has the City doing tickets on private property?

And speaking of fines, I’ll pay the one referred to above, but I read on here that the city cannot enforce parking fines? I remember at one time they would take people to court to collect on them…How come they can’t collect now?

Whether your in favour of Downtown parking or not, just make a decision already and move on. I’m sure everyone has better things to do than to continue flogging this poor old horse. My faith in this Council’s ability to lead this City and make good decisions went away, just like the old parking meters, and it doesn’t look like either will be returning soon.

I am afraid that there are some decisions in a democratic society have to follow a process. That process needs to be a reasonable one and include those who are affected by the decision.

In this case, the primary people affected are the merchants of the downtown who rely on customers being able to park reasonably close to their places of business. In addition, they should have a say in the conditions of that parking agreement – free or paid, if paid, how much, and time limit, if any.

It seems they were not only not consulted, but it was not even remotely considered that the downtown parking program is one that ought really to be operated as a joint venture between the DBIA and the City.

Parking is a zoning matter. Each land use requires building owners to provide parking and loading zones, as well as spaces for the handicapped in a quantity shown in a table in the zoning bylaw. The exception is a section of the downtown to the north of 7th avenue for which the City has taken over that responsibility and has to provide sufficient parking for the assembly of land uses within that zone. The landowners compensate the City for that with an increased annual tax levy on their property.

Now, the interesting seems to be that while Parkwood, as an example, provides its own parking both through a parking lot as well as a small parkade, and charges nothing for the use thereof, the City provides parking in parkades (that is why they built the parkade below the original Chances development) as well as parking lots and on street parking, yet not only collects the $700,000/year from the property owners but also charges to rent the spaces for long term leases and short term hourly parking.

I went through the City’s Financial Report recently and could not find a succinct program based financial accounting of the parking program for the downtown. I do not know whether the DBIA has this kind of easy to understand summary which actually tracks that for the portion for which their members are being charged annually.

I think it is time that information is shared with the rest of the taxpayers as well since we want to know whether, when we pay for monthly parking or hourly parking in any City Facility, we are supporting the cost of the program, whether the program is under funded and is actually subsidized through general revenues, or whether it takes in more money and those who park in City facilities are paying funds into general revenues.

I think it is called transparency. And to be really clear, in a simple “language” which does not take more than a grade 8 education to understand.

So, now that that is ou of the way, why is there a charge for parking in city parking lots downtown but no charge for parking below the library, the city portion of the parking lot to the south of the Inn of the North, the parking lot between the Two Rivers Gallery and the 4 seasons pool and the parking lot at the ice arena as well as staff and visitors at City Hall.

Does the capital cost as well as maintenance come from general tax revenue or do the individual operations pay for the lease of those spaces?

I think the city spent $300k to repave the lot at city hall just a year or two ago. A quick estimate on Google Earth there are maybe 80 vehicles parked on the shiny new pavement. For arguments sake say half are private vehicles, if they were charged a parking rate similar to CNC the city would recoup the money in roughly 20 years. Reasonable.

Side note: Free parking at city hall should be a taxable benefit for employees.

Then there is the matter of the RCMP officers private vehicles….are they too “freeloaders”? What will be the policy at the new police station?

Parking for the Police Cars will be at the new station, however I understand that parking for the 50 police support staff will be provided at the City property South of the old Princess Theatre between 3rd and 4th.

No doubt once they turn 4th Avenue into a two way street there will be additional parking around the station ie; North, South, East, and West, that will probably be posted as restricted to police vehicls, or some such. Who knows??

It matters not where the RCMP members and support staff park their private vehicles but if they will pay for the off street parking or will they be as Mr. Ed…I mean Wilbur so eloquently put it be “freeloaders”.

There are costs to build and maintain these parking lots and the people that use them should contribute- plain and simple.