Council clashes over parking meter hours

City Council voted on Wednesday to send a proposal extending parking meter enforcement times to committee following a clash between council members who introduced the agenda item and those who expressed concerns about the potential consequences in their districts.

Council Members Edward Pollard and Tiffany Thomas, who brought the item forward under Proposition A — which allows any three council members to put an item on the agenda — were among the four who voted against sending it to committee in a 13-4 vote. Council Member Fred Flickinger, the third member who sponsored the agenda item, voted to send it to committee.

The current city ordinance requires people to pay for city parking meters between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m., Monday through Saturday, with free parking on Sunday. The proposed change would extend the payment enforcement period from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m., Monday through Saturday.

Costs to downtown

The agenda item was tagged by Pollard last week after his other proposal about adding speeding bumps was sent to committee. Council Members Joaquin Martinez and Mario Castillo, who represent parts of the city with the highest concentration of parking meters, championed the motion Wednesday to send the proposal to the Proposition A Committee, which Mayor John Whitmire created to help members vet and refine their proposals.

The freshmen council members explained that they were given little notice of the original proposal before it was added to the agenda last week, and they needed time to contact key stakeholders in their districts to better understand the potential impacts of the proposal.

“You’re impacting the whole business district, and you’re not even talking to them about what you want to do,” Martinez said Friday.

Downtown Houston CEO Kris Larson and Performing Arts Houston CEO Meg Booth told the Chronicle that they first heard about the changes from Martinez, who represents downtown.

Larson said these changes could be financially harmful, whether it was to the many service industry workers who rely on street parking or the small businesses struggling to find retail employees to work downtown.

“(Service workers) are the ones arriving before 6 p.m. and often staying put,” Larson told the council during Tuesday’s public comment. “Our storefront businesses are having a hard enough time filling shifts and finding workers, and this will create another hardship if implemented as proposed.”

Booth also suggested the city conduct a parking study to better assess the impact extending parking meter hours would have on potential audience members. She said Performing Arts Houston wants to make sure the city’s arts and theater remain accessible to all — and not just to those with the means to pay for extending parking times.

“We were worried about how quickly this was being moved through,” Booth told the Chronicle, before adding “that it would absolutely impact so many of the people who count on free parking after six o’clock to make coming down to the theater district accessible.”

None of the three council members who brought the item forward have parking meters in their districts, according to a map provided by ParkHouston.

Still, Pollard explained last week that if the city is in need of revenue as it faces a potential $230 million to $280 million shortfall in the next fiscal year, the proposal is a means to generate some revenue relatively quickly.

“This is a way in which we can trickle on small amounts that will add up over time,” Pollard said.

Reigniting Prop A debate

Pollard told council Wednesday that sending the proposal to committee would violate the process approved by voters under Proposition A, which does not mandate council proposals go through committee before being added to council agendas.

“Now (if) the items that are brought forward are not supported by council, then you can vote it down,” Pollard said. “You can delay it. You can tag it. That’s your prerogative, like every other agenda item that may come to us. But to send them to a committee ... I think is going against the will of the voters.”

Castillo argued that all proposals – even if brought under the new charter amendment – may be tagged, delayed or referred to committees.

“There’s no automatic requirement that everything brought to council via Prop A will go to a committee, and I’m sure there will be examples in circumstances where we bring items to council and they get passed or they get voted down directly,” Castillo said. “But this clearly needs more work.”

While some, like Evans-Shabazz, agreed with Pollard, expressing concerns about council “cherry picking” which proposals go to committee and which go to an immediate vote, the majority supported sending it to committee to allow for additional engagement from the community.

“We’re emphasizing to the public that we want them in the process,” Mayor John Whitmire said during council.

This isn’t the first time a parking meter proposal has come before the council. In July last year, the council considered a proposal that would have forced people to pay for city parking meters until midnight, but decided not to move forward with the change after some said it would impede visitors’ trips downtown.