Commission Impossible

Flame on. (don't try to tell me how to use my flame, Kee-id...)

We didn't like much of what we heard last night.

Get rid of a lane? More diagonal parking? What are they going to do about those delivery trucks that already shut down the streets, backing up traffic all through the morning and into early afternoon? Delivery trucks are getting bigger and bigger - are we going to ban those large trucks from our interior streets?

Downtown traffic is a major roadblock to east-west travel, and now it looks like it's going to get worse and worse. It's not just people looking for parking, it's people trying to get somewhere. We're talking about old state hwy 99 here, it connects the four sides of our town to each other. There are times when the only way you can get from one place to another in this town, without driving to the opposite end of town on new 99 and doubling back, is to drive right through downtown. It's already a gauntlet, their suggestions make it worse.

And that's just sweet - excuse developers from paying in lieu of parking fees? Whose idea was that, Tom DiGiovanni's?

What do we get out of this discussion, which has been babbling along like Chico Creek for over a year now? $170,000 worth of babble!!!! More directions to staff for more recommendations. Another "long term vision." Yadda, yadda, yadda.

I was sitting at a meeting one morning when Gruendl asked staff to do a feasibility report on developing Bidwell Ranch. There was a moment of embarrassed silence, then somebody from 'staff' told the then-mayor that they'd already done a report and it was sitting right in front of him. He was punting, because the wrong audience was sitting at the meeting and he just didn't want to discuss the subject anymore. That's what they are doing here with those vague recommendations - waiting for the noodleheads from Friends of Downtown to get bored and go off to a macrame festival or something.

The real discussions on this subject are going on behind closed doors and the general public is not invited. The liberals and their developer buddy already have a "vision" for downtown, it's called "Uptown."

Flame off.

I found a couple of things interesting about last night. The first was that all of the council seemed to be ok with development going in downtown. That may be the only place in town where that occurs.

I would agree that placing housing components downtown would be "near" up-scale. They would not be used by families. And some council members, Flynn in particular, seem to want to urbanize the downtown to look like some of our west coast cities (Seattle and Portland were referenced last night).

I'm not sure I have a problem with that. But I'm not sure it fits "Chico" either.

I thought DPAC was able to successfully change the direction of the conversation by removing the parking structure from the discussion, and focusing on making other access improvements immediately.

I was very impressed by the speakers, particularly Steve Gonsalves. But also Alan, Tom H., and TJ. It was nice to see Tom Lando in the mix as well. I think they took a significant high road in the way they dealt with the parking structure impasse. The few opponents to a parking structure that spoke seemed confused by a lack of targets to rail against.

Whether the council is just paying lip service to solving a problem business owners have genuine concern about is not something I can predict.

I hope they are serious about solutions, and they sounded serious last night.

Lon

Lon,

I really feel sorry for Collier's. They are in the the yellow block in your picture.

It seems odd that the graphic shows the block having more available parking than the others around it at that time of day, but I think that is because of the often available street parking next to the vacant lot behind Collier's.

Colliers's is really "impacted by location" and according to the charrette documents they should not get any parking relief until your entire map is at 85% full. So the parking at 8th and Broadway has to get as bad as Collier's has it now. How long do you think it will be for that to happen? I guess they will get along, selling to the bicycling handyman types.

Wouldn't the 85% make more sense if we operated in a closed system? I mean people don't have to shop downtown. Why put up with the hassle of parking downtown when you have so many other choices opening up everyday outside of the downtown. Does the 85% reflect that in any way? I am thinking that we will only get 85% coverage downtown when the entire city is built-out and has also reached 85%.

Another twisted thought.
I saw last night that we have 4000 parking spaces downtown. But half of those are private, so we really only have 2000.
The biggest offenders of downtown private parking are the banks. We have 6 of them downtown (actually 8) and they all have parking lots. It's just the way that banks are designed and they won't open a bank unless they have secure parking for their customers, so for now we have to live with it.

Anyway, 2000 parking spaces for 425 businesses means that we have 5 parking spaces for each business, professional or retail. If your business has more than 5 employees you are taking more than your share and in a sense you are adding to the parking hassle and discouraging retail exchange and commerce. So is the continued growth of your business going to hurt other businesses around you? Does your sixth employee make your "homegrown" business a burden on the community?

TJ,

I think (as was mentioned last night) that losing the two downtown theatres was a foreboding event. Losing Collier's would leave me to belive we're near the bottom of downtown's retail failure. By the way someone from my office just headed over to Colliers to spend a little money. Little being the operative word.

I'm seeing people just a bit younger than me buying homes in Orland and Paradise, but still working in Chico. We have four people in our office. We lease two spaces, one is used by our employee everyday who lives outside Chico. People will continue to work in Chico and buy homes elsewhere because homes elsewhere are affordable.

If my business were to expand to 6 or 8 people we would probably leave downtown Chico. Spending $2K a year for leasing employee parking would be a hard pill to swallow.

That's too bad, because I spend a lot of money down here on food, and do much of my gift shopping downtown. I even sent my son to a pre-school down here.

Lon

Lon,

I didn't get a chance to mention this last night but I was talking with John Alden from North Rim Sports and he was telling me how he started paying his employees not to drive.

He has private parking and curbside meters too, but realized the value of easy parking for his customers. I guess he figured that the increase in sales to customers who have easy parking paid for the employee incentive program. Is that thinking ahead of the curve or what?

I realize that not every business could do that but businesses with the most impact could really help out. And, they should be recognized for their commitment and dedication to the sustainability of the downtown.

If you got paid to ride a bike to work plus you didn't have to keep pumping a buck into the meter every 2 hours wouldn't you become an environmentalist too?

That is inspiring. There really is the ingredients for a great community here.

Lon--

The few opponents to a parking structure that spoke seemed confused by a lack of targets to rail against.

Indeed. The public testimony hearing was bookended by Mike Worley, who rambled nearly incoherently without a discernible point or a relevant supportive argument, and some goombah from the Farmer's Market who made Worley sound incisive and rehearsed by contrast.

More significantly, Cheryl King, who spat fire and thunder at the DPAC open forum awhile back, dialed it back about 99% and said nothing more combative than "we all just want the same thing, really". Karen Laslo appeared to be sedated into silence.

The self-satisfaction of the so-called progressive community following the election resembles nothing so much as the Hessians on Christmas morning.

But they'll sober up, get over the hangovers, and mount a counterattack, you may be sure. Many of the usual suspects from the patchouli patrol didn't even show up; probably figuring that with a 5-2 majority, they didn't need to. Let the hired guns from TDR and Nelson-Nygaard do their stuff, and after the downtown merchants stage their little tantrum, return to the agenda of Profit Prevention.

But the council showed real awareness. Actually, they didn't behave all that atypically. They've demonstrated time and again that a well-organized angry mob can pretty much get whatever they want. But this mob was not angry, just passionate, and not so well-organized as united by shared adversity.

The final outcome, directing staff to "make it so, but let us look at it again before you actually do anything" is worrisome. I would have been much more satisfied with more specific instructions to (a) prioritize implementation options, (b) cost-analyze them, and (c) forecast delivery timelines. Extra credit for predicting outcomes...

Still, I haven't felt so positive about a Council meeting since the 5-0 vote to begin evening and weekend meter enforcement, and we all know how that ended up.

But when we've restriped the streets and mounted new signage, encouraged more pedestrian, bicycle, and transit commuting, and put in traffic calming measures and differential pricing, then we can conclude that what is needed is concentrated, park once/pay once, multistory parking facilities on the periphery of downtown, and no one will be able to argue that we haven't explored all the other alternatives.

Would one of you whizz guys do the math on a City subsidised Downtown bike parking garage.

I still think this would be a great cost effective way to go. It works in a lot bigger and more constipated, I mean congested cities than Chico.

Parking for a day is free. Overnight is say, five bucks to discourage storage. Rent on a big centrally located, otherwise vacant space is picked up by the City. When it really catches on, the price could get bumped up to a buck, and it might even make money.

For the price of a charrette, hundreds of parking spaces could be freed up for a few years.

Gregg,

So could we issue each business employee a plastic card with a magnetic strip. They enter the protected bike area by sliding the card through a magnetic door lock.

The card reader logs the person in and credits their personal account for a refund credit payment at the end of the month (or year(("ooh surprise Christmas bonus from the City")).

Going a step further.
Their business would get credit for the employees magnetic card too. We issue US Green Building Council LEED credits to those businesses and they get to promote that with their advertising. Like how Google just got awarded "best employer" and they get praised for it. We could do that on a local scale with sustainability.

I don't think LEED has an urban category for environmental design yet, but i think it is not far away. They have a new category for Neighborhood Design and they have an urban part to that but i bet that will become a new category and we could set the example. Wouldn't that be a great way for the city to be promoted and a source of local pride.

This could work into credits for garbage recycling credits, waste reduction programs, employee insurance programs, use of natural light, etc.
Maybe even SBA loans that give special recognition for sustainable business practices based the this new urban environmental design credit program.

With the new General Plan coming up this is good timing.

All I hear are rainbow wishes but no plan to pay - oh yeah, that's right, there's always my property taxes. I stand corrected.

I tell you, I love Kelly Meagher, he's a good guy. I don't always agree with him politically, but he's a good person, and he was undeserving of a cheap petty shot that didn't do anything to further intelligent discourse.

Juanita,

Coming from you that's pretty funny. You have a habit of directing withering fire at people in and out of the public eye.

But that doesn't make your comment incorrect. I don't know Kelly Meagher, and Alan's comment was not what I would normally post.

I've edited it out, thanks for the heads-up.

Lon

I have to say, Alan's withering wit usually makes me laugh. I loved his summation of downtown parking structure protestors on the HOA website - "dirt worshipping tree huggers". I may write that on a T-shirt with a magic marker.