Downtown Parking Meters Will Stay (VIDEO)

The next time you park on the western edge of Main Street, you'll still going to have to feed the meter.

The City Commission voted Monday night to strike down a measure to and sell the equipment. Voting against was Mayor Suzanne Atwell and commissioners Shannon Snyder and Willie Shaw while Vice Mayor Terry Turner and Commissioner Paul Caragiulo voted in favor of removing the meters.

"We need a couple of more cycles," Atwell said. "We need some more time."

Atwell said only more chaos would ensue if the city would remove meters and would turn to free parking everywhere downtown.

Snyder agreed, saying one of the original complaints about parking downtown was how restaurant employees were using up customer spaces, so the program was suppose to deter merchants and their employees from parking in spaces to attract customers.

"No one's spoken yet on how we will keep the employees out," he said. "If they couldn't do it then, they won't do it tomorrow."

Another measured failed proposed by Caragiulo to adjust the parking price to 50 cents an hour, down from the seasonal high of $1 an hour currently in effect.

Instead, the city is going to look at using a new program tentatively called "Change or Information" where a Parking "P" logo will be displayed on participating merchants' windows showing businesses willing to provide information on downtown, or how to park, or simply provide change to feed the meters, said Mark Lyons, the city's parking manager.

One of those four supporters Lyons found was president James Derheim, who led the rally to bag the meters, who said it's a way to provide a positive interaction with a customer.

"Positivity spreads. But you know what spreads even faster?" he said. "We are putting a blanket of negativity on downtown Sarasota with this [current] program."

As Derheim continued to praise Lyons for his work, City Auditor and Clerk Pamela Nadalini unknowingly set up Derheim for a one-liner.

"One minute remaining," Nadalini told him.

"Here, I got a quarter. I wanna buy more time," Derheim said, as he flipped a quarter on the dais. Even the commissioners and charter officials chuckled at that exchange.

Merchants filled the commission chambers wearing paper bags on their heads, on their bodies or used as signs, many of them written with "Bag 'Em" on them, as part of the protest, several of them interrupting the meeting with jeers, despite the urging by Derheim beforehand to be respectful of the commission. Atwell had to take a five minute recess just to finish her comments on her upcoming motion because of the interruptions.

Twelve people spoke on the item, most of them against it citing poor business due to metered parking, or not enough people are using the meters or the complexity and uncertainty when someone tries to pay for parking using the machine.

"I'm not always confident the technology before me should operate it like it should," said Peter Fanning, president of the Downtown Sarasota Condominium Association.

Caragiulo colorfully phrased his observations.

"As I observe people using these machines, the fact you have to have someone to sit there and explain what this is, is bit of a red herring," Caragiulo said. "It's sort of like explaining to someone how to use a urinal. It just defies logic."

He added that the frustration of figuring out how to use  a meter probably deters people more than the price.

Some folks supported the meters, saying it's not the meters that is having a negative effect. Diana Hamilton, a past commission candidate, gave the Saturday farmers markets as an example of how much people come down and pay to park downtown.

"They are not angry people," she said. "They are paying to park, and they are also parking where it's free. They are coming downtown because there's an even that they want to come to." 

She added the argument that parking isn't far because St. Armands doesn't have paid parking is that there isn't alternative places for people to park for free, legally.

Hamilton also said businesses need to help themselves by organizing to stay open past 5 p.m. when most of the working world gets off, so there would be traffic to shop.

"There has to be some more synergy, some more interaction," she said.

It turns out that parking downtown is getting used, according to data provided by Lyons. The industry standard is aiming to hit an 85 percent occupancy rate at some point during the day, and several parts are, he said, between 6 and 8 p.m.

But that doesn't mean customers are paying where they're suppose to.

"Typically you're going to have fewer individuals complying than what you should be, and paid utilization will be lower, consequently," he said.

Shaw said he would support an informal workshop that merchants suggested to take a closer look at how to solve downtown parking.