Kelty, however, said parking fines should not be changed. Instead, he favored ripping out all the downtown meters and offering free parking for one hour. He said parking enforcement officers could chalk tires to ensure people don’t abuse the spots.
So let me get this straight. We're going to pay to rip out all the parking meters and then we're going to have people chalk every car's tire so they don't have to pay a quarter. Brilliant!
And what if they want to stay in their spot longer than one hour? Are they going to have move their car or will the city contract out some private company to sell "Kelty's magic parking chalk eraser"? Do we really need to roll back to pre-20th century parking technology? Parking meters do their job and it makes parking enforcement efficient. We don't need to completely overhaul parking so that people that come downtown for an hour don't have to pay 25 cents. Some ideas have pros and cons - this one is just a bad idea.
Speaking of bad ideas, will this new parking plan be rolled out in conjunction with the glass covered downtown that Kelty envisioned? You know, the Kelty Dome:
For example, I would love to see a development -- and I'm producing renderings to demonstrate this -- where you take Columbia Street and build a superstructure attached to the facades on both sides of Columbia Street and put the whole thing under a glass enclosure.
I'm sure private developers will be crawling out of the woodwork to fund the Kelty dome. Vote Tom Henry this Tuesday...
4 comments:
What if you go downtown a lot and have yesterdays mark on your tire? I like the idea of just paying a quarter. When I had to go down to pay fines, you usually pulled into a spot that still had plenty of time left. I always still put money in so the next guy would get some free time.
Jeff - Was the following sarcasm, or did you really believe it at the time:
Are you kidding me?
After reading this I don't understand how ANY Republican could not vote for this guy. Matt Kelty should be the future of the local Republican party.
I would honestly like someone to explain to me what Peters has done, is doing or saying that leads people to believe he would make a better mayor than Kelty?
Posted by: Jeff Pruitt | April 18, 2007 at 12:28 PM
John,
I was not being sarcastic. If you listen to the majority of what Kelty was saying in that interview it was 100% Reagan Republican rhetoric. Peters on the other hand was doing absolutely nothing and was certainly not an inspiring candidate. There's a reason Matt won the primary and I guess those comments represent the first time I realized that was possible.
At the time it did seem like the Kelty wing of the party was going to be the future of the party - it still might be. Also, I had no idea about his character issues and that obviously trumps everything else.
I think that quote shows the danger of analyzing candidates from a single interview...
I guess I just don't "get" the GOP view at all - *I* was less concerned with Nelson being the nominee. I could have lived with him as mayor - Kelty. . .NO WAY!
Perhaps I'm more towards the middle, or Kelty's WAY too far to the right. . .but, NO SALE!
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