L Street Parking Lot - Can of Worms

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Oh yeah, we're making money!

The L Street Parking Lot is never full. In fact, it is always empty other than perhaps Friday night and weekends where you might find a few vehicles. Susan Stanton, when asked by the Commission, said that it was making money. How much? $2 a day? The Commission never asked, "Well, how much money are we paying for the Lease and how much revenue are we generating?" Would not that be a normal question when you are going to approve a budget.

The Commission never approved a parking pay station downtown. It just appeared and a Lease agreement was on the desk of resigned Mayor Rene Varela. We were then subsequently informed of the deal. This is a highly questionable transaction. And speaking of Varela, he was the one who constantly pushed for special assessments. He wanted everything but the kitchen sink put on special assessments. If you don't like assessments, we can blame him for supporting and pushing for the whole horrible and unfair idea of which you have not yet seen the worst. He was instrumental in opening the can of worms.

The Scenario: The City entered into a Contract on February 1, 2011 to September 30, 2011 for the sum of $10,000 which comes to $1,250 a month which seems like a reasonable rate. It was signed by the Parties (Mayor Rene Varela signing for the City) on February 10, 2011. We will pay the owners, Lucerne Holdings LLC, rent and charge parking fees to those using the parking lot thus helping to off-set the cost to the taxpayers of Lake Worth and hopefully paying for the Lease. How much did the black-topping cost? How much did that pay station cost? On top of all of that, one of the problems with this and never addressed is the simple fact that there is no one there to write tickets and/or collect fines. This was all a dirty rotten decision by Staff to get downtown parking pay-stations in the City in spite of all of the rest of us who said "no."

This lease is coming up for renewal in 30 days. Commissioners, make sure that you are not, once again, opening a can of worms by allowing paid parking into our downtown. Ask all the right questions but most of all, ask the residents and the downtown merchants whether they want pay stations downtown and what our expenses are for this lease. The argument now will be, well if we don't continue on with it then the owner can put in a pay station--we've already spent all of this money to improve someone else's property so why not just keep paid parking there? We can't get that worm back into the can.

Also, don't screw up the 4 hour parking time limit and change that either, unless you really want the downtown to be a ghost town.

We gave you an emphatic "no" last year on parking pay stations, as did the Finance Advisory Board, in spite of the fact that a few of you wanted paid parking downtown. Stanton found a way of getting it and many of you are on that former Commission that said nothing.