Downtown Parking Master Plan - On Monday evening (May 1) the City Commission will consider the final adoption of a long-awaited master plan to govern the development and administration of our downtown parking program. The Commission has already seen presentations on each of the four phases of this study effort, and will be seeing the final plan for approval. The plan contains 41 specific implementation items, from adopting a priority map for needed parking inventory to where and how parking should be for-pay vs. free. One of the proposals is to do a pilot test on a portion of Main Street of a to-be-determined system (meters, pay stations, etc.) to test the effectiveness in turning the spaces over and practicality of operation. Up for discussion - what about meters on Main Street? Should the city charge for parking right on Main and make it cheaper or free farther away to encourage use of places like the 2nd Street garage, or should it remain free on Main? What about the Main Street retail employees who take up the customer spaces, and resist parking places like 2nd Street or Orange Ave.? Any opinions out there?

Lift Station Seven Relocation - A couple of questions have been posted regarding the City Commission's decision to relocate this facility, which was the source of significant wastewater spills in both 2004 and 2005. As far as what went into that analysis, and the analysis of alternatives, I'm simply not in a position to say, as I was not a participant in those discussions. (Those who follow this blog know that avoiding the question is not typical here, but the reasons for my absence from that work, as requested by the neighborhood representative have already been chronicled.)

I can say that as the project progresses the direct and collateral impacts will be mitigated as much as they possibly can. There is a great deal of detailed engineering work that has to take place next, and we will be asking the engineers who are selected to do that work to be extrememly cognizant of those impacts as they work toward an actual design and construction plan.