Mark Elliott Strikes Again…

St. Catharines City Councillor Mark Elliott and I have never agreed on anything. I can’t help but have the impression that he comes up with what I perceive as hair-brained schemes simply to incite controversy. There are other posts here in The (Ir)Regular Periodicals about Elliott’s earlier machinations, so this is just another in the ongoing list.

This time he wants to introduce paid parking downtown to 2:00 a.m. (currently paid parking is ’til 6pm, and free on weekends).

If you’ve never been to downtown St. Catharines, you can’t possibly appreciate the implications of Elliott’s proposal. Downtown St. Catharines is already on the fast track to becoming a ghost town, despite past and current studies… after studies, after studies to remedy the situation. The present City Council doesn’t seem to have the Midas touch either when it comes to “revitalizing the core.” (Those three words deserve inverted commas, because it’s the most overused phrase in City Council’s vocabulary. What I dislike about City Council is its penchant for studies, surveys, analyses, reviews, investigations, committees, sub-committees, and even sub-sub-committees. Our City Council excels at commissioning them all. Top marks!

Last June I sat in on a City Council “revitalization” meeting, headed by the mayor. There were about 12 or so members, plus myself, a guest. (No one knew I was a guest, at the mayor’s personal invitation I might add, because he neglected to introduce me. ) I was there because my daughter’s dance studio had been located downtown for the last twenty-something years, but its owner had decided to move elsewhere in the city because of the core’s issues. I was there to give my input since I had taken my daughter to the studio for the last eleven years and had seen just about everything one cares to see… companies going out of business, the overcrowded, after-hours bar scene, drunks, druggies, pushers, prostitutes, criminals wielding weapons… you name it.

We even had a nickname for the lane our studio backed onto: “Crack Alley.”

For the first twenty minutes of the meeting members discussed a proposed, draft copy of a downtown brochure, replete with decades-old clip-art. There wasn’t much to the brochure, since they were still deciding on clip-art and the layout of the four foundation themes the brochure ought to contain.

I felt like I was in the twilight zone.

After about twenty minutes I couldn’t stand it - I spoke up and let ‘em have it, the stories of the ne’er-do-wells, Crack Alley, even the military cadets who, training one night on St. Paul in full regalia and toting “weapons,” frightened the hell out of a few moms and their 10 and 11 year-old daughters walking from the studio to their cars. The “military” cadets failed to make known this was a training exercise. Minor detail. One parent was so incensed about the whole episode that it was brought to the attention of the city newspaper that later ran a story.

When you’re in downtown St. Catharines at night, you DON’T want to see men with weapons running around in camouflage attire failing to identify themselves. In New York City, I would hazard a guess this would have caused a major stir.

But at the meeting, clip-art and the four foundations theme of the city seemed to be the order of the day.

Gimme a freakin’ break.

So, as a large chunk of the human population of this “fine, fine, city” (to quote former Mayor Joe) tends to avoid the downtown core at all costs, Elliott comes up with a brilliant scheme to charge parking fees ’til 2 a.m. Gotta love those meters, especially when they display the Fail flag, or eat your loonies or toonies and show nothing for your money. God forbid you’ll ever get it back from City Hall, though they’re quick to ignore how much money is owed to us unsuspecting folk when the damn meters swallow your coins and then raise the Fail pennant. This extended paid parking nonsense will surely be, as one person said this morning, “the final nail in the coffin.”

Apart from occasionally visiting Hannah Headley’s Fine Books downtown, (Mrs. Headley has two great establishments, by the way) I refuse to shop in the core. An unfortunate decision, too, since there still are, and have been, wonderful stores downtown.

I’m chalking up this latest strategy of St. Patrick’s Ward Councillor Elliott as another of his hair-brained schemes. The only good I see coming out of this is knowing who NOT to vote for in the next election.

Here’s the St. Catharines Standard article…

Putting in their two cents on paid parking; Downtown retailers, shoppers sign petition against proposal to enforce meters on Saturdays, extend hours until 2 a.m.

Posted By DON FRASER
St. Catharines Standard

Kim Stevens pulls no punches over the prospect of extending municipal paid parking at night and on Saturday in St. Catharines’ core.

“I think it’s a stupid idea,” said Stevens, owner of Mostly Comics on St. Paul Street.

Stevens is helping to circulate a petition against the proposal. About 25 other downtown business owners had signed the petition by the weekend - with many more customers adding their names.

“A lot of my customers have this store as a destination on Saturday,” Stevens said. “It’s a social thing. They don’t want to run out every 12 minutes to put coins in the meter.”

With motorists already parking for free at malls, expanding paid parking hours downtown makes even less sense, Stevens added.

On Nov. 26, St. Patrick’s Coun. Mark Elliott put forward an omnibus parking motion that was deferred by council until city staff can report back with more information.

A key proposal is to eliminate what Elliott sees as discriminatory paid parking practices and nighttime parking problems by extending weekday paid hours from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m., and introducing paid parking on Saturdays.

Paid parking is from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and parking is free on weekends.

Downtown merchants and patrons interviewed were critical of the idea.

“I like the free parking on evenings and Saturdays,” said Justine Cotton, a Brock University librarian who was having lunch with her teacher friend Joanne Burch at Strega restaurant on King Street Saturday.

“If the goal of downtown is to have more vitality, then free parking is definitely an incentive for people,” Cotton said.

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Burch said the extended hours would place a huge burden on struggling restaurants downtown.

Strega owner Kelly Girard agreed.

“Extending paid parking would be a big mistake,” Girard said. “Downtown businesses are penalized enough by the outrageous (cost) for parking on the street.”

John Fulton, owner of Fulton Fitness and Downtown Health Club for Women, said he was “absolutely, totally” against the idea.

“What is Mark (Elliott) thinking?,” Fulton said. “Many of us are here and thriving because of those free parking times. We need free parking on the weekends to build any kind of traffic downtown.”

Tisha Polocko, general manager of the St. Catharines Downtown Association, said merchants are “very upset” by the parking proposal.

Taking away free parking on Saturdays “would be really unfortunate,” Polocko said. “It took quite a few years for us to make people aware there actually was free parking downtown on Saturdays.”

“Other business improvement areas have done the complete opposite - they’ve implemented free two-hour parking in their (areas).”

Many residents downtown would also be affected, she said. People who require street parking when visiting friends in the evenings would be forced to keep filling a meter.

Elliott said many of these concerns are feeding on “misinformation.” The main thrust of his proposal is to provide the city with the means for more downtown policing, he said. Paid parking would mean an extra $300,000 a year in meter revenue, not including tickets.

His motion calls for revenue to go to a parking meter reserve fund to maintain and build new parking facilities, to ensure “safety and security measures downtown” and keep the parking system self-supporting.

Niagara Regional Police would also provide a police escort for night parking enforcement officers and more foot patrol officers during “peak nighttime hours.”

Contracts would also be entered into with private lots to have city officers ticket - but not tow - people illegally parked in those lots. Parking meter “grace periods” would be increased to 30 minutes from 10. City parking would be free from Sunday at 2 a.m. to Monday at 9 a.m. under Elliott’s proposal.

“One of the issues we’ve noticed … is customers are saying, ‘We used to come downtown for dinner, but now we feel uncomfortable there,’ ” said Elliott, who co-owns the Elliott and Company home decor store on St. Paul Street.

If revitalization is going to happen, people have to come to a place where they feel “safe and secure,” he said.

“Paid parking is not an issue that will drive most people away from the downtown,” Elliott added. “‘As it stands now, it’s a free-for-all in the core after 6 p.m., and people park wherever they feel like.”

Elliott said his November motion was also referred to two sets of consultants associated with downtown’s revitalization committee.

One is with the Downtown Creative Cluster Master Plan Study and another connected to a study of licensed establishments in the core. Both reports are due next month, he said.