 little bit about this proposal for the parking meters. Okay at the last council meeting we presented a recommendation to city council just some information for them to digest of some changes that could happen in parking this was really in response to a one of our hospitality districts asking for some changes so we just took a look at what our parking rules are city-wide and looked at some opportunities to maybe bring consistency across the city so that's what the conversation was last week and that's one of the options and we're really looking to pilot that right now in the five points district as everyone in Columbia knows and a lot of our visitors that's the district that has a lot of activity day and night time and managing the parking at night may be beneficial to the district so they asked us to look at that proposal so a lot of times I'm this has been a conversation for years in different districts is how to better manage the supply demand of parking so it's not unusual for a business or a hospitality district to reach out and just ask us to consider changes for instance several years ago we implemented Saturday enforcement in five points to help control the supply demand and and the reason for that is we want to make sure that patrons have a place to park when they try to go into the businesses and if you're not enforcing sometimes people who are not patronizing the businesses are taking up the spaces so we're looking to control that so they really reached out this is part of a bigger plan not just parking we've got a commercial corridor plan that you've probably seen we've rolled out and we've been talking with our council over the last few months about this is one component of a commercial corridor plan that really will start in five points looking at five points and how to incentivize development how to attract new development and really revive the five points area parking is just simply one component of that so likely the whole commercial corridor plan there will we will be rolling out different components of that start in January 1st we're already talking about all of the components of that plan but we as staff are preparing for some implementations early January not sure yet about when the parking changes would take place so so that's yet to be determined and that's conversations we need not only with our council but with the five points district well and unfortunately you can't ever get a situation where everybody agrees so we will try to do the best we can with managing the supply demand and making it beneficial to the community as a whole our council will certainly have more conversations I don't they don't necessarily have to take the vote on it they do have to support it staff implements the directive will given by our council so certainly they set the policy and we implement it is in a work session last week and it was agreed upon but it wasn't voted on like you said right so will it ever be voted on or like you said we'll just be a conversation there will be additional meetings before anything's implemented additional conversations there is not currently the requirement for it to be voted on council can certainly decide they want to vote on it so so I don't have a exact answer to that it will not happen until there's other public meetings going on though with our council there's potential that is not something we're looking to do immediately it would be a pilot in five points I don't have a time frame of how long that pilot would last but certainly we're looking with with any service we provide or any activity we provide we want to know what the community needs as a whole it's easier for our customers and the parking community if there's consistency across the city we do get some complaints sometimes from people who get tickets on Saturday and five points that they didn't realize they needed to feed the meter so consistency is important but also listening to our communities important and we have a lot of different needs across the city so we're going to listen to those needs absolutely we network again not only parking related with any service we provide we look at our comparable communities we have good relationships across South Carolina and across the country with other entities similar in nature and even some not so similar even the private industry we like to know what they're doing that doesn't mean we're going to do it but we still need to be aware of it so certainly it's not unique across the country to have extended hours enforcement again I do want to stress this is not driven by revenues I think that's some of the fear is this is a revenue driven concept and it's not as a supply demand if the meters are the spaces are taken up by people who are not patronizing the businesses that's not good for the businesses we want to make sure they're available the meters are short-term parking our garages are more long-term parking we want to make sure people who want to go patronize the restaurants the retail all of the activities going on have a place to park so it's easy for them to get to those locations it stays in the parking fund so we do have a parking fund and it's reinvested in the parking system so for instance our meters are fairly old we'd love to see a replacement from those meters to pay stations on blocks maybe credit card meters just innovative technology that makes it easier for the customer but also more efficient to manage so we would reinvest our garages are another example you'll see we've been implementing some new hardware and software throughout four of our garages within the last year that is parking funds that get reinvested in our system to help us maintain it absolutely we there are stickers on all of our meters and and when we do get complaints that people didn't know they needed to pay the meters actually do say that already is for Saturdays and five points you have to pay we would certainly replace all the meters with whatever the updated hours are we would post information on our website use social media work with the five points association to push information we actually want people to know when you have to pay and when you don't have to pay so are you referring to the entire commercial corridor plan or parking in general the whole so parking is a situation that a lot of the challenges in five points as nighttime parking it is people who are coming after your typical business hours that have a hard time finding a place to park so managing that parking to prevent students who may not be patronizing the businesses from just leaving their cars they are overnight because they don't have anywhere else to park if they have friends come into town and you know there they're where they live doesn't have enough parking we want to make sure they're not taking up a meter that a business needs for their patron also employees of businesses street meters are not intended to be the employee parking for businesses we need to get them a little farther off of the street so that the patrons have a place to park so this would help manage that as well so fortunately the city just bought the building at 2221 divine we have 315 spaces that we are looking to enhance the connectivity between that that's why it is actually a two-level deck to make sure that people know that is also a parking option for five points and we're excited about that opportunity excited about what that means to bring more parking to five points we also have three surface lights we have a divine street surface light a pavilion street surface light and on Hardin Street the old Exxon station is public parking we're looking to better promote those better utilize those day and night time we absolutely listen to all input we receive and we digest that information our council sets the policy so we certainly share that with them and yes I believe we as a city are very responsive to our citizens and our customers and they say it's revenue generated one more time we've heard that concern again I want to stress this was in response to a request the city received this was not driven by staff this was us responding to a request from the five-point stakeholders who again it's not parking in isolation this is an entire commercial corridor plan of how to revitalize five points we're excited to be part of that this is not city staff driven this is a community driven initiative we certainly will listen and respond it is hard sometimes to balance the needs of all stakeholders but but we do try to do that well we have revenues and expenses from five points so you know enforcing meters in general takes money improving the connectivity between the property we bought at 2221 divine and five points we need better street lighting we need more cameras we we need a lot of other assets to make that facility feel comfortable to park in so yes it will be reinvested in five points as revenues across the city are reinvested in all areas of the city so that's certainly a concern we have heard expressed we do not believe our parking rates would deter anyone from coming downtown we're certainly sensitive to that though and we will feel we will filter that into our conversation and try to make sure that that's not a barrier to people coming downtown because we certainly won't as many people as we can get to come downtown to Vista Main Street five points Divine Street Rosewood North Main we want our city to be lively and we're excited about what's happening and we are not trying to be a deterrent to that so so staff implements policy council sets there is nothing today in our code that will require a council action it is likely our city manager will make a decision that we would want to vote on before we actually set forth on the pilot program but council did give they were receptive to trying a pilot in five points pilots are just that they can be retracted if it's not going well and you know there's a lot of anxiety or a lot of negative results from a pilot but but if you don't do one to start you know you never know so in other cities across the country I don't know if y'all researched that that we're behind the scale as far as how other cities are trying to manage parking well into the evening it's a good problem to have we have people downtown at night we just need to manage making sure the spaces are available for the businesses now in Chicago I moved from Chicago not long ago one thing they did was actually sold the parking meters and absolutely I think everybody in parking across the country knows that story I don't see us the model that was used in Chicago no I don't see the city looking at that kind of model we certainly every day not only in parking with every service we provide look for efficiencies and if it's more efficient to have certain activities performed by contractors then we certainly are open to that we we need to look at that hard and close and make sure that we're doing what's right not only for short-term for long-term no I don't see us ever selling our parking system I don't see that day coming we we start you may see us outsourcing some of the activities but not selling the system and that's not even on the radar right right now