Council OKs removal of 3 parking lots
Council also looks to hire consultant for diversity trainings
The Eureka City Council gave further direction to staff to come up with a broad plan for diversity training for all city staff, voted to proceed with plans to turn three parking lots into low-income housing and received a bit of good news from the team at UPLIFT Eureka.
Less parking, more housing
The council, sans Austin Allison who was absent Tuesday, voted unanimously to authorize the “removal of public parking at three public parking lots to facilitate development of Affordable Housing Projects”.
The three parking lots, located
at the intersections of Sunny and Myrtle avenues, Sixth and M streets and Eighth and G streets, constitute 96 soon-to-be-gone parking spaces in the city. In their place will go three affordable housing units which combined will constitute at least 60 units, according to city staff.
Staff reported that the lots on Myrtle and G streets each yield a usage rate no larger than 15% on average over the past few years.
The lot on Sixth and M street saw a usage rate of 86% in 2019 and as much as 95% in 2017.
A few community members representing nearby businesses voiced concerns over the plan to scrap the aforementioned lot. Cheyenne Spetzler, the COO of Open Door Community
Health Center Centers, said a new nearby behavioral health location at 622 H street will be severely impacted without the G street lot.
“I’m shocked,” she said. “We relied on this parking to move forward with the project.”
Spetzler, who said open door has already leased the property, told the TimesStandard she was banking on the mostly empty lot being able to hold around two dozen of her employees’ vehicles.
Diversity training
During a special session, the council directed staff to find a consulting firm to put together a broad diversity training package for all city employees.
Reached by phone Wednesday, Mayor Susan Seaman told the TimesStandard she believes the training is essential for addressing prejudice within governmental power structures.
“Putting police departments through this training is an easy task, but it’s important for all people in a position of power to understand and address the pervasive ways in which prejudice affects people of color,” Seaman said.
The mayor said the city has been looking at such a training course for a number of years. Tuesday’s direction should hopefully yield a training package sometime in the next year, she said.
UPLIFT gets grant
UPLIFT Eureka announced it received a $344,000 grant from the county for homeless housing and outreach, which inpart will go towards funding one or two new outreach specialists geared toward allowing the program to do what it does best — respond to and support community members facing housing and other crises.