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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2012-01-26 DTPC PacketT H E B I R T H PLACE O F MINNESOTA DOWNTOWN PARKING COMMISSION AGENDA Thursday, January 26, 2012 8:30 AM Conference Room 213, City Hall 1. CALL TO ORDER 2. ELECTION OF 2012 OFFICERS 3. APPROVAL OF DECEMBER 15, 2011 MINUTES 4. NEW BUSINESS 4.01. Credit Card Sales in Parking Ramp 4.02. 2012 Parking Guide 4.03. Parking System Revenue & Rate Structure 4.04. Special Event Requests A. Cruisin' On The Croix 5. OTHER BUSINESS 5.01. Update on City Council Decisions A. 2012 Parking Fees B. Brown's Creek Trailhead Lot Maintenance Costs 5. ADJOURNMENT Item 2 III THE BIRTHPLACE OF MINNESOTA TO: Downtown Parking Commission FROM: Bill Turnblad, Community Development Director DATE: January 18, 2012 RE: Election of 2012 Officers Background According to the bylaws of the Parking Commission, a Chairman and a Vice Chairman are to be elected annually by a majority vote of Commissioners present at the first meeting of the calendar year. Discussion The 2011 Chairman should request nominations for both positions. If only one nomination is received for a position, a simple hand vote is all that is necessary. If two or more nominations are received for a position, then a secret ballot on folded slips of paper should be conducted. bt Item 3 Commissioners present: Commissioners absent: City staff present: City staff absent: Guests: Submitted by: DRAFT Stillwater Downtown Parking Commission Meeting Minutes December 15, 2011 Jeff Johnson, vice -chair /resident David Korte, secretary/resident; Sherri Hopfe Franke, Daren Anderson, resident Aimee Peletier, chair/business; Gerald Helmberger, resident John Gannaway, police chief; Bill Tumblad, community development director; Dennis Mike Pogge, city planner Doug Menikheim, councilmember Andrew Mercer, Stillwater Area High School David Korte business; Dave Junker, resident, Pasket, parking enforcement officer; agenda discussion action call to order Jeff called the meeting to order at 8:36 a.m. approval of agenda A motion was made and seconded to approve the agenda as presented. The motion passed in a unanimous voice vote. approval of November minutes A motion was made and seconded to approve the November meeting minutes. The motion passed in a unanimous voice vote. David will forward the approved minutes to the Stillwater city clerk. parking rates for 2012 events (continued from December) Bill presented background information, discussion points and a rate chart based on this Commission's November discussion. Commission members were appreciative of the good job Bill did summarizing that discussion in a memo with a rate chart. Discussion continued on the 2011 fee schedule, with consideration of: (1) prior city council actions vis -a -vis our recommendations, (2) input from Stillwater business owners, and (3) the commission's November discussion. In the end members agreed with Bill's proposed rate chart, with the following changes, i.e., instead of free parking in the unpaved lots during peak season there would be a $1.00 /day /space for weekday and $1.50 /day /space for weekend use. The commission thought this change was necessary to ensure adequate funding for downtown parking maintenance. A motion was made and seconded to recommend to the city council that the 2012 event parking rates be adopted with the above - mentioned change. The motion passed in a unanimous voice vote. Bill will forward the Commission's recommendation to the city council to be placed in the 2012 city's fee resolution. credit card sales in parking ramp Mike updated the Commission on the new credit card security standard effective March 31, 2012 and notified the Commission of a pending need to upgrade equipment in the ramp and the associated costs. He said the current parking ramp equipment is not compatible and it would cost $17,000 to make it compatible. However, our vendor said new replacement equipment might be coming out soon at a projected cost of $11,000. At the present time 49% of ramp users pay with a credit card. Mike Pogge will present background information and a proposal to the Commission at the next meeting re: options to upgrade the parking ramp to meet the new credit card security standard. He will also present ideas on how best to fund the project. agenda discussion action downtown parking for Browns Creek Trail (continued from December) Bill presented the proposal to use City Lot 9 as trailhead parking for the new Browns Creek Trail. After discussion the Commission did support the use of the lot for trailhead purposes. However, they thought the lot should remain free but the Parking Enterprise fund should not be used to pay for improvements to the lot. A motion was made and seconded to recommend: (1) using City Lot 9 as a Browns Creek Trailhead for parking (2) not allowing boat parking and 24 -hour parking, (3) continuing to have the Parking Commission manage the lot but all expenses, including amenities, would be paid by the City's General Fund and not the Parking Enterprise Fund. The motion passed in a unanimous voice vote. Bill will forward recommendation to city council. 15- minute parking zone requested by Compass Center Healing (continued from December) Bill presented Compass Center Healing's request to have a 15- minute parking space in front of their building. He said he spoke to the business owners who might be affected if 15- minute parking spot # 7 was moved to in front of Compass Healing. These owners were not concerned with this change. A motion was made and seconded to move the 15- minute parking spot #7 from its present location to the spot in front of Compass Healing Center. The motion passed in a unanimous voice vote. Bill will forward the request to move 15- minute parking spot #7 to in front of the Compass Healing Center. update on city council decisions There were no parking commission recommendations to report to the city council. general discussion Commission members stated they would like to consider these items at the next meeting: • recommendations from city staff on the best way to upgrade the credit card security system at the parking ramp. • downtown parking revenue as a whole to see if all pieces complement each other. • the financial report including revenues and related expenses. • our annual budget report (either at the January or February meeting). Dennis distributed the 2011- parking brochure and asked everyone to bring suggestions for 2012 updates to the next meeting. next meeting The next meeting will be Thursday, January 19, 2011 at 8:30 a.m., Conference Room 213, City Hall. David will send out a draft of the minutes before the next meeting. Bill will send out an agenda and supporting documents before the meeting. adjourn A motion was made and seconded to adjourn the meeting at 9:54 a.m.; the motion passed in a unanimous voice vote. Draft 2 Item 4.01 iller THE B P R T H P L A C E O F M I N N E S O T A TO: Downtown Parking Commission FROM: Bill Turnblad, Community Development Director DATE: January 19, 2012 RE: Credit Card Upgrade Options for Parking Ramp Background When the pay equipment was installed at the parking ramp it followed the Cardholder Information Security Program (CISP) standard developed by VISA. At the time it was the industry standard. Since then a new "Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard" (PCI -DSS) has replaced the CISP standard. Our equipment as configured does not meet the new PCI -DSS requirements and if it is not upgraded we will have to discontinue accepting credit cards at the ramp on March 31, 2012. Options The City is faced with three options. None of them are particularly appealing. We could: 1) stop using credit cards and require cash for all payments; 2) we could upgrade the credit card equipment at a cost of about $17,000; 3) or we could make the ramp a monthly permit lot with free three hour parking similar to the way many lots downtown are managed. At the December 2011 meeting, the Parking Commission decided to keep credit cards as a payment option, since they are used so frequently by the ramp's customers. However, since the cost of upgrading represents more than a year of credit card sales revenue, the Parking Commission requested that staff investigate further whether other less expensive credit card upgrade alternatives might be available. Our current equipment vendor is Amano McGann. Staff is working with them, but is waiting for information on an alternate hardware configuration that may make upgrading less expensive. This information will hopefully be available in February. Some course of action will have to be decided upon in February in order to continue using credit cards after March 31, 2012. bt Item 4.03 iliwater THE BIRTHPLACE OF MINNESOTA TO: Downtown Parking Commission FROM: Bill Turnblad, Community Development Director DATE: January 20, 2012 RE: Parking System Revenue & Rate Structure Background This off - season the Parking Commission is re- examining the rate structure for the entire downtown parking system, including the parking ramp. The goal of a possible rate change is to ensure that enough revenue is raised to cover the system's short and long term maintenance costs. Critical information for the analysis will include historical and projected revenue generation as well as historical and projected system costs. The historical revenue and costs can be provided by the City's Finance Department. And, projected system costs can be estimated with the help of the City's Public Works Department. The Finance Department is in the process of gathering the historical data, but 2011year end accounting has not yet been finalized. Hopefully all of this data will be available in February. Projected revenue figures on the other hand are not readily available. And they will be difficult to develop. This will require understanding not only the projected number of users over the coming years, but a thoughtful balancing of rates for the various surface lots, on- street parking and the parking ramp to ensure that the various elements provide the needed future parking revenue. Free on- street parking and free surface lots will draw customers away from pay lots and the ramp. On the other hand, if all public parking options are pay only, the number of customers using the downtown parking system may be reduced. A workable balance will have to be achieved. Discussion Given the complexity of the system, staff believes that establishing a committee to work through issues and options would be advisable. January 20, 2012 Page 2 The committee should be kept at a workable size, perhaps a maximum of nine members. The membership should include a couple of Parking Commissioners (four cannot serve on the committee or a quorum of commissioners is present and it becomes a public commission meeting). It also ought to include representatives of downtown businesses (retail and office), a City Council member or two, several Stillwater residents and several City staff members. Recommendation If the Parking Commission agrees that a committee is a good idea, then staff would recommend that the City Council establish the committee and appoint members to it. To help the Council with setting up the committee, the Parking Commission should consider: 1) What should the committee's goals be? 2) Should the committee complete their work in time to incorporate any potential rate changes in the 2013 season or the 2014 season? 3) How many total members should serve on the committee? 4) What groups should be represented on the committee? 5) Which Parking Commissioners would like to serve on the committee? 6) Are there any individual people that the Parking Commission would suggest the City to approach to serve on the committee? In order to achieve some type of balance amongst interest groups, staff would suggest if, for example, a Parking Commissioner who owns a business downtown serves on the committee, then the number of other downtown business owners that serve on the committee ought to be reduced by one. bt Item 4.04A iliwater THE BIRTHPLACE OF MINNESOTA TO: Downtown Parking Commission FROM: Bill Turnblad, Community Development Director DATE: January 18, 2012 RE: Cruisin' On The Croix Background Cruisin' On The Croix has made application for a 2012 Special Event Permit. The event organizers would like to reserve Municipal Lots 4, 5 and the northern portion of 7 on ten Wednesday evenings between June 6 and August 29. • Lot 4 would have all 46 parking spaces reserved for the event from 4 to 9 pm. • Lot 5 would have 35 paved spaces reserved and all of the gravel portion of the Lot reserved. The Parking Commission generally says there are the equivalent of 15 to 25 unmarked spaces in the gravel portion. Staff recommends charging for 15. This lot would be reserved from 4 to 9 pm. • Lot 7 would have the northern 64 spaces reserved for the event between 5 and 9 pm. Therefore a total of 145 paved spaces and the equivalent of 15 unpaved spaces would be reserved each of the ten Wednesday evenings. Discussion According to the 2012 Fee Schedule, the following parking rates are in effect this year. Downtown Parking Rates - Peak Season (May through September) Weekday' Weekend /Holiday' Lot 1 $15 /day /space2 $15 /day /space2 Lot2 $9 /day /space3 $9 /day /space3 Other paved city lots $1.50 /day /space4 $3 /day /space4 Unpaved city Tots $1 /day /space4 $1.50 /day /space4 On- street parking (except on Main Streets) $9 /day /space4 $9 /day /space4 1 Peak season weekday = Monday through Wednesday; Peak season weekend = Thuisday through Sunday 2 Partial day use (or reservation) will incur only a partial day fee as follows: 0 -4 hours = $5; >4 but <8 hours = $10; more than 8 hours = $15. 3 Partial day use (or reservation) will incur only a partial day fee as follows: 0 -4 hours = $3; >4 but <8 hours = $6; more than 8 hours = $9. 4 This rate applies whether the space is used (or reserved) for a partial or full day. 5 On -street parking spaces cannot be reserved on Main Street. Cruisin' On The Croix January 18, 2012 Page 2 If the 2012 rates were applied to the event, the parking fee would be (145 spaces X $1.50 X 10 event dates) + (15 spaces X $1 X 10 event dates) _ $2,175 + $150 = $2,325. For comparison purposes, based upon the published rates for 2011, the Parking Commission recommended a discounted fee of $4,9146 (13 event dates, 126 spaces). The City Council decided to charge a total of $650, which was $50 for each of last year's event dates. Recom mendation Staff suggests that the Parking Commission recommend to the Council that the published rates be used for the 10 event dates. Though, it is expected that the Council will reduce the actual fee charged to an amount similar to last year. bt 6 Last year there were 13 event dates and only 126 parking spaces were requested. This year there will be fewer event dates (10) but more parking spaces for each event (145).