MONROE - Proposals to do a study of the city's downtown parking situation were struck down by a 3-2 vote Monday, July 1, during a joint meeting of the Public Safety Committee and the Finance and Taxation Committee.
A mayoral ad hoc parking ramp committee had requested the study to help determine the current and future parking needs of the city, including what to do about a 46-year-old parking ramp at 11th Street and 15th Avenue.
The proposals' costs ranged from $20,000-$30,000 from one company to $45,000-$55,000 from a second company, both based in Chicago. No local companies submitted quotes. A third proposal did not meet the needs of the request. The quotes are higher than the $8,000-$12,000 the committee was expecting. Members chose two of the quotes; city staff reviewed the proposals and recommended the lower cost of the two.
The ad hoc committee has about $27,000 in the 2013 budget. Al Gerber, city engineering department supervisor, said the committee had hoped to roll over unused funds from last year to cover the added cost.
But Alderman Louis Armstrong, a member of the Finance and Taxation Committee and one of the 14 members of the ad hoc committee, said the city has all the information it needs to make a decision on the ramp. He had voted against the request for a study.
"Why do we need all these people to speculate on our future?" he said. "We need to move more aggressively on our own."
He said it is already known that the ramp "is not safe at capacity. It has to go away" and that the city needs better signage to point people to parking available off the Square.
The remaining questions for the ad hoc committee to answer are how much parking space to replace and where to put it.
Armstrong motioned to reject all the proposals and to do no study; Brooke Bauman and Tyler Schultz joined. Tom Miller and Reid Stangel voted against the motion.
Members of the joint committee have asked to review the 2003 parking study, which Phil Rath will send out.
A complete engineering evaluation in June 2012 by Arnold & O'Sheridan, Inc., a Madison engineering consulting firm, showed the parking ramp facility needed $1.4 million in repairs by June 2013 and another $145,000 within the following five years for additional repairs.
But the report also stated, "Based on the poor condition of the structure and being underutilized, it may be more cost effective to raze the structure and have a surface parking lot."
The cost to replace the structure is estimated at $4-6 million.
The ad hoc committee recommended implementing timed parking in the city's downtown business district but never passed the discussion stage at a Public Safety Committee meeting May 6, after 20 business owners, residents and representatives from community organizations appealed to the committee not to "jump the gun" and wait for the parking study to be done. Some people stated that finding parking spaces on the Square was not a problem; others said the problem existed only at certain times of the day, mainly during the lunch hour.
A mayoral ad hoc parking ramp committee had requested the study to help determine the current and future parking needs of the city, including what to do about a 46-year-old parking ramp at 11th Street and 15th Avenue.
The proposals' costs ranged from $20,000-$30,000 from one company to $45,000-$55,000 from a second company, both based in Chicago. No local companies submitted quotes. A third proposal did not meet the needs of the request. The quotes are higher than the $8,000-$12,000 the committee was expecting. Members chose two of the quotes; city staff reviewed the proposals and recommended the lower cost of the two.
The ad hoc committee has about $27,000 in the 2013 budget. Al Gerber, city engineering department supervisor, said the committee had hoped to roll over unused funds from last year to cover the added cost.
But Alderman Louis Armstrong, a member of the Finance and Taxation Committee and one of the 14 members of the ad hoc committee, said the city has all the information it needs to make a decision on the ramp. He had voted against the request for a study.
"Why do we need all these people to speculate on our future?" he said. "We need to move more aggressively on our own."
He said it is already known that the ramp "is not safe at capacity. It has to go away" and that the city needs better signage to point people to parking available off the Square.
The remaining questions for the ad hoc committee to answer are how much parking space to replace and where to put it.
Armstrong motioned to reject all the proposals and to do no study; Brooke Bauman and Tyler Schultz joined. Tom Miller and Reid Stangel voted against the motion.
Members of the joint committee have asked to review the 2003 parking study, which Phil Rath will send out.
A complete engineering evaluation in June 2012 by Arnold & O'Sheridan, Inc., a Madison engineering consulting firm, showed the parking ramp facility needed $1.4 million in repairs by June 2013 and another $145,000 within the following five years for additional repairs.
But the report also stated, "Based on the poor condition of the structure and being underutilized, it may be more cost effective to raze the structure and have a surface parking lot."
The cost to replace the structure is estimated at $4-6 million.
The ad hoc committee recommended implementing timed parking in the city's downtown business district but never passed the discussion stage at a Public Safety Committee meeting May 6, after 20 business owners, residents and representatives from community organizations appealed to the committee not to "jump the gun" and wait for the parking study to be done. Some people stated that finding parking spaces on the Square was not a problem; others said the problem existed only at certain times of the day, mainly during the lunch hour.