Parking Commission

PARKING COMMISSION MINUTES DATE: July 16th, 2020 1;00 pm MEETING LOCATION: 4th FLOOR CITY HALL MAYOR’S CONFERENCE ROOM CITY HALL, 1 PUBLIC SQUARE CLARKSVILLE, TN. 37040 I. Parking Commission Members Present: Ryan Bowie Carol Clark Morgan Knight via phone City of Clarksville Employees Present: Mayor Joe Pitts Chief of Staff-James Halford via Google Meet Laurie Matta Regina Hampton Richard Stevens Premier Parking Representative Present: Michael Palmore II. Mayor Pitts began meeting—today’s purpose is to discuss feedback surrounding last week’s Parking Roundtable meeting and possible rate structure change for downtown meter parking. Mrs. Clark expressed concern over any all day parking option downtown, but agreed that maybe 3 hours wasn’t long enough. Mr. Bowie said that there are 7 salons downtown that would benefit from an extended maximum time on meters (many of their customers receive services that last longer than 3 hours)—Mr. Bowie also requested the number of spaces available in the garages/lots. Mrs. Hampton will provide via email after the meeting. Mr. Palmore indicated that a maximum of 4 hours could be the solution (on all streets/meters—this does not include the surface lots with kiosks). Everyone agreed this could be the best solution. It was also mentioned that no one had received negative feedback in regards to the “pay to play’ environment—twenty-five cents to begin a parking session—gets you 1 hour and 15 minutes. Question was asked how quickly does the Commission vote on this and what needs to happen before the change--Mayor Pitts offered to go door to door and talk to merchants face to face about the change. Mrs. Clark felt the July 30th Commission meeting was too soon to vote. A special called meeting of August 4th will be called in City Council Chambers with just this item on the agenda to discuss and vote. This will be heavily marketed and communicated through signage, graphics (Mayor Pitts asked Mr. Stevens to being working on this—Mrs. Hampton requested Mr. Palmore work with him as well), and media. III. Meeting ended at 2:40 pm.