Municipal Services Committee Votes To Hold Overnight On-Street Parking Resolution Until March 2024 – Committee Provides Feedback On What They Would Like Staff To Investigate Further

The Municipal Services Committee met 12/11/2023. One of the items they took up was Resolution 11-R-23 which, if passed as written, would allow on-street overnight parking in the city with the purchase of a parking permit.

At the request of staff, the committee voted to hold the item until the first regularly scheduled meeting in March of 2024, but prior to finalizing the hold the committee discussed the item for around 30 minutes in order to give staff some guidance on what the committee wanted them to investigate and review.

I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download.

Per the memo from Direct of Public Works Danielle Block, there were a number if issues the committee needed to keep in mind if it wanted to move forward with this resolution in terms of the impact it would have on staff and the Public Works Department’s operations. As a result, they wanted to get some feedback from the committee before proceeding with any further investigation.

After reviewing the memo, several alderpersons seemed disinclined to move forward with requiring a permit to park overnight on city streets, but they were still interested in moving into a system where vehicle owners could, without a permit, park their cars on alternating sides of the street from night to night.

The committee wanted staff to:

• Investigate the issues associated with allowing on-street, overnight parking on alternating sides of the street.
• The experience of other comparable cities that already allow overnight, on-street parking on alternating sides of the streets.
• The feasibility of allowing on-street, overnight parking only in certain sections of the city. (Due to signage requirements set out by state law, it sounded like this would probably end up not being feasible.)
• The staffing and administration requirements needed should the committee decide to go with a permitting process for overnight, on-street parking.
• The impact overnight, on-street parking would have on city services such as snow removal, garbage collection, and leaf collection. (It seemed that snow removal was the service that would potentially face the largest impact.)

Other issues discussed were the general need for overnight parking in some districts as well as the lack of consistency in enforcement of existing parking restrictions.

Alderperson William Siebers (District 1), the author of the resolution, talked about how many residents in his district needed to utilize on-street parking due to factors like small garages, short driveways, and more adult children living with their parents. He said that he had gotten up a couple times at 4 in the morning and driven through his district. On one occasion he counted 100 cars parking on the street, none of which had tickets on them.

Alderperson Kristin Alfheim (District 11) mentioned that cars parked in her district received a lot of tickets. On the other hand, Alderperson Chris Croatt (District 14) said that, like the cars parked in District 1, those parked on the streets of his neighborhood tended to not get tickets.

The Police Department actually has a special car for parking enforcement, and that car was outfitted to deal with overnight parking violations; however, the department does not have enough Community Service Officers available at night to drive the car and hand out tickets.

After providing feedback to city staff on the things they wanted to be investigated further regarding on-street, overnight parking, the committee voted 3-1 to hold the item for approximately 90 days until the first scheduled committee meeting in March of 2024. Alderperson Siebers cast the one dissenting vote, and my impression was that he would have preferred the matter to be handled more quickly.

View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1145256&GUID=71D558F8-C469-4D93-961D-A6B9C5334492