The Municipal Services Committee met 10/23/2023. They spent almost 40 minutes discussing the request from Appleton Downtown Inc for free meter and ramp parking in downtown Appleton on Small Business Saturday, 11/25/2023.
The request had originally been recommended for approval with no discussion but, after it reached the Common Council, was then referred back to the committee for a second look.
The second time around, the committee engaged in a more robust discussion and, determining that there were logistical issues with allowing free ramp parking, ended up voting to allow free meter parking only on 11/25/2023 for Small Business Saturday.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download.
A similar request had been brought by ADI in 2014 and in 2018. In 2014, the request was voted down, and in 2018 it was approved only for meters. ADI had also discussed this with the mayor in 2022 but did not have time to get it approved by the committee and Council in a timely manner so did not bring forward a request.
This second time before the committee the financial aspects related to the request were discussed. Per Director of Public Works Danielle Block, a typical Saturday in November has averaged around $2,300 over the last five years. [I would assume that figure is artificially deflated because it would have included Novembers during Covid when markedly fewer people were parking downtown.] in 2022, the average was around $3,800, with $3,100 coming from the ramps and $700 coming from the meters.
Jennifer Stephany, the Executive Director of ADI, did not know how much of an uptick in revenue downtown businesses would experience if free parking were offered. She thought there were probably some good statistics on a national level, but there was nothing on a local level. Anecdotally, she believed that small business owners would say that Small Business Saturday was a significant day in downtown Appleton.
One of the points of discussion was whether this request ought to fall under the city’s current policy allowing private entities to offer free parking for a special event. Under that policy, an organization or business would pay either $5 per meter for half a day or $10 for a full day, and the meters in question would be bagged so that people did not have to pay. In this case, not including the ramps, there were 768 meters downtown. At $10 per meter that would be more than what the city would bring in if free parking was not offered. Additionally, bagging all of those meters would be time consuming and logistically problematic.
This was a little more akin to a special event like the Farmers Market. ADI pays a special event fee to hold the Farmers Market but it does not pay a fee for the meters. Additionally, in 2018 when the city did approve the request for free meter parking, the city did not bag the meters but rather left it up to ADI to advertise that people did not need to plug the meters on that day.
Ultimately, there did not seem to be any specific policy that covered an event of this sort, which was why it had been brought to the committee and Council in 2014 and 2018 and again now in 2023.
Alderperson Kristin Alfheim (District 11) initially suggested that she would prefer to allow free parking in the ramps and not at the meters as a way to keep parking on the street more short-term and allow cycling through of cars and also as a way to try to get more people to check out the ramps in the hopes that they would discover it was a viable and convenient parking option. Alderperson Katie Van Zeeland (District 5) agreed with that, and Ms. Stephany also said that if ADI had to pick one or they other they would prefer the ramps.
They initially thought about amending the item to allow free parking in the ramps but not at the metered stalls; however, as they discussed it, they realized there were major logistical issues. If someone enters the ramps when the gates are open but tries to leave after the gates have been closed, they would receive a $50 fine for not having a ticket. There did not seem to be any good work arounds for this issue. As a result, the committee ended up amending the item to allow free meter parking but not free ramp parking on Small Business Saturday 11/25/2023. The meters will not be bagged and it will be up to ADI to let people know that they do not need to plug the meters on that day.
This was done as a type of temporary compromise for this year, but various alderpersons expressed a desire for a more concrete policy to be created, perhaps one that included a fee of some sort that would allow the parking utility to recoup some of its lost revenue.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1119176&GUID=58DB7575-12DF-49FD-8030-32302B86E49E
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