Opinion: Police boot drives home downtown growing pain

Getting “the boot” on my car was a first. I understand it also was the city’s first.

As I walked into the downtown Springfield parking lot at 6:30 p.m. after work Oct. 10, there it was – a bright, shiny new orange immobilizing clamp on my front driver’s-side tire. Then, I spotted the eye-piercing-orange tag on my door handle with instructions on how to get my new hubcap bling removed.

I’d been booted.

I knew it was coming. We all were warned.

Earlier that day – as I was working, mind you – I received the Springfield Police Department’s news release announcing enforcement of this boot system for citizens with unpaid parking tickets. I also was aware of the city ordinance approved in June that spelled out this system. I just didn’t know how quickly the department would act on its enforcement date (oh, within about six hours).

By this point, you should’ve gathered that I had a few unpaid parking tickets. The police clerk I paid told me there was a handful of cars downtown they’d identified to go after.

The real story is how these parking tickets were amassed. The answer: at work.

My collection started in June 2006, several months after downtown developer Scott Tillman purchased and closed off a rundown surface lot for what is to be the cinema and retail portion of his College Station. Many SBJ staff, including me, parked in that lot because it was hardly used by downtown business customers and it was only a block away.

No sweat. In the name of progress, we moved to spots on College Street, where people rarely parked, or to the Community Improvement District-approved lot in front of the calaboose. Then, that lot closed to make way for, ironically, a parking deck.

So where do we park in the meantime? Downtown organization Urban Districts Alliance, which manages the CID, granted SBJ and other daytime parkers use of a gravel lot at Main and College, a short three blocks from SBJ’s doorstep. I parked there when I could, meaning often but not when I was running late to work or knew I had an off-site meeting that day.

The parking problem is not isolated to SBJ.

More recently, the city closed off two surface lots at Campbell and Olive that were used by state employees. Those lots are undergoing needed improvements.

I asked state employee Elizabeth Mendenhall, who works in investigations in the Greene County Children’s Division on Park Central Square, how it’s affected her office: “I rarely park legally because those spaces are three miles away and in a dark alley and I am coming and going frequently with my job,” she said via e-mail. “We have become somewhat aware of the ticket man’s schedule and call one another when he’s marking tires; luckily I’ve only had three tickets.”

In short, long-term parking for downtown’s everyday users, who some would call its core, has been crippled.

Office users are caught in a construction crunch for parking garages. Again, irony creeps in. Meanwhile, we play musical parking spots to keep away from UDA’s “parking ambassador,” a full-time position established to enforce hourly parking regulations.

What happens then is that you win some days and you lose some days, and in the end, you get a boot because you’ve lost on too many days. I know: Had those losses been paid on, we wouldn’t even be talking about a darn boot. I’m not disputing that.

The deeper problem is that UDA’s parking enforcement leaves the impression that it’s OK for some business users to park illegally, and it’s not OK for others.

The telling sign was hearing Shannon Merced, owner of Shae Belle on Campbell Avenue at Walnut Street, directly across from where my car was “booted,” tell TV news cameras that she and her employees routinely park in two-hour street parking and haven’t been ticketed.

“I don’t know if they’re enforcing that or not,” Merced told KOLR 10’s Chris Grogan. “Obviously, I’m not running out to my car every two hours to move it. I mean, that’s impossible.”

Yet that’s what SBJ and other office users have done when parking in what CID labels Lot No. 12 McDaniel, next to the bus turnaround. What’s the significance of that lot?

Here’s what I know:

• Tillman owns it and leases it to the CID.

• SBJ subleases three spots.

• More CID parking citations have been issued there than any other lot by a 5-2 ratio since May.

According to CID’s Parking Citation Summary, provided to SBJ upon request, 123 tickets were written in that lot since May (when CID began tracking locations), compared to 49 in Lot No. 10 Boonville (at Olive), where state employees park.

Do we think we’re entitled to public parking spaces? Conditionally, yes. Realistically, no. Springfield has conditioned its citizens to expect at-your-door parking, for retail or office use. With that basis, it makes sense to me to show some flexibility during a transition period to privatized parking at the same time the parking deck duo is erected.

Please understand that I in no way intend for my curiosities to sound like finger-pointing. I take full responsibility for my parking violations. I’m the example, and I’m OK with that.

I love coming downtown to work every day. Like many, I see the potential here. But downtown is not without its issues. In this case, I just got caught in the middle of a growing pain.

So did SBJ colleague Billie Marsala, the recipient of the city’s second boot. That was on Oct. 16, the same day KSPR’s Michelle Sherwood interviewed me for being Springfield’s first boot victim.

We have eight weeks left to play this game; we’re told College Station’s garage will open in early December.

We’re counting down the days.

Springfield Business Journal Editor Eric Olson can be reached at eolson@sbj.net.