(38th in a series of posts on parking)
Ok, listen up, me Gadfly bonnies. The test is coming. Time to do serious preparation.
Gadfly means all of us.
But Gadfly means especially Council members. In fact, my main intended audience here is the Council members. I wish all were followers. Sigh.
Council will discuss the BPA proposal to raise parking fines on Tuesday, October 16.
We know that the Mayor has already approved part 1 of the BPA proposal, the increase in parking meter rates. Now it is Council’s turn: to consider the proposal to increase the fines.
Though the meter part and the Mayor part are officially out of the way, I know that personally it is hard not to feel that the whole package is still operating when it comes to deciding about the fines: meter rates and fines are integrally related, symbiotically related (wonk!), and the whole approach of BPA/Desman is under scrutiny. Everything is still in play.
The Council Public Safety committee considered the BPA proposal and voted it down 2 (Van Wirt and Negron) – 1 (Colon). Councilpersons Reynolds and Waldron also attended and participated in the meeting. Reporter Daryl reads them as yay votes at this next level in his Call article above, and he may be right. That leaves Councilpersons Martell and Callahan not sounded out yet.
There are almost 40 posts on this parking issue here on Gadfly. Gadfly loves the flow of conversation, loves all the posts, but what should Council review for the test?
First, the BPA side:
The final Desman report is a 93-page megabrute. There for you, Councilpersons, but not especially recommended here in the homestretch review period.
Rather, for final review from the proposer’s perspective:
- Post #7: a short series of overview bullets relevant to meter rates and fines
- Post #10: video of Desman’s overview presentation Sept 20 (25 mins.)
- Post #24: “the BPA case distilled from the Desman report as best I can”
- Post #29: the BPA memo to Council proposing to raise fines
Second, the view of the “other” side:
Posts 11-14 chronicle the mostly opposition voices to the meter rate proposal and the whole BPA/Desman approach at the Sept 20 meeting. That’s a kinda long stretch of posts. But the great thing is that the whole meeting was video’d. And you can see the “others” doing their thing in the links there.
More efficient for this final contrarian review, though, would be:
- Posts 16-17: Gadfly tries to give a sense of the content and concerns of the “others” at the Sept 20 meeting on meters
- Post 25: Gadfly tries to give his own “honest reactions” to the “others”
- Post 36: the “audience” and “nay sayers” bullets of the Oct. 10 meeting – a shame we didn’t have video at this one (a lot of great comments from all perspectives)
- Post 37: Gadfly’s trouble with BPA/Desman’s proposal presentation
So there’s Gadfly’s attempt, as the vote appears on the horizon, to provide resources to consider both sides of this issue on the table Tuesday.
The Gadfly likes to help people have the resources to make their own informed decisions.
Gadfly has one or two more steps in mind as he himself thinks about what Council should think about before voting on Tuesday.
And Gadfly hopes that Councilpersons will clearly articulate their positions for us that night in some specific detail. Many of us on Gadfly have been following closely and paying attention as best we can (witness the almost 40 posts here) and will be interested in comparing how you see things.