HomeMy WebLinkAboutCouncil Member Merrill LetterDear Mayor and City Council,
I am sorry I cannot be at City Council meeting Wed. evening. I have business affairs in Salt Lake City that I cannot change. I would like to submit my opinion on the towing and booting
ordinance to be discussed. I have read the suggestions from the Marassi's and I think their arguments do have some merit. I am opposed to requiring Apt. Owners to provide more Visitor
parking spaces. I believe their suggestion to allow 1 hour of streetside parking has some value. It may be worth suggesting to the Apt. Owners that they have their Managers or Assistants
be more active during their check-in/check-out periods and monitor their parking lots so that parents/friends can park in their lot for a limited time without being booted or they could
issue a a permit from the Office that is good for 20 or 30 minutes for unloading and then they need to move out of the parking lot. Having said that I do recognize that policing the
1 hour limit could be problematic without adding more Parking Enforcement Officers which I don't believe we want to do. Another option might be to not enforce the "U" parking zone during
the 3-4 days around the University classes starting and ending dates so that visiting parents can move their students in and out without fear of booting and once that period is over
there should be enough regular Visitor parking spots to accommodate any stragglers or other visitors.
Another suggestion would be to form a committee comprised of Reps. from the Apts. and students to whom a booted person could appeal to for a review and if the booting party was found
to have booted a car unreasonably (according to a set of accepted rules agreed to by the committee and booting companies), that person would be required to pay double or triple the
booting cost back to the victim of the unreasonable booting practice (I include towing in this as well). This would help the towing/booting employees to think twice and make a logical
judgement before towing or booting a car when it is not necessary.
These are just suggestions for discussion. Parking always comes with it's own set of challenges but I would hate to see us impose more onerous regulations on the Apt. Owners who are
facing their own set of challenges. Somehow we need to come up with a way to be both visitor friendly and business friendly.
Thanks for your time and good luck!
Warm Regards,
Jerry Merrill