Helena business owners and residents raised their concerns with city officials about the cost of parking permits and tickets in the downtown area on Wednesday morning during a Helena Business Improvement District meeting.
The city’s Business Improvement District invited city officials and community members to share their thoughts on the prices of monthly permits, parking availability and locations of downtown parking.
The Helena parking department charges monthly fees that start at $60 for street parking, $70 for lot parking, $85 for the parking garage and $95 for multi-lot permits.
City Commissioner Andy Shirtliff was a part of the morning roundtable discussion where he and other city officials heard multiple complaints about downtown parking. He also encouraged those in attendance to offer potential solutions.
“I understand there’s frustrations, rightfully so, but we’d like to hear some suggestions, ideas and thoughts that you might have on how we can improve this together,” Shirtliff said at the start of the meeting.
Along with concerns about parking locations, fees and enforcement that business owners raised during the hour-long meeting, multiple people also recommended a discounted rate for parking permits for downtown employees as a possible solution.
City parking manager Tim Nickerson said during the meeting that the city already offers discounted permits for part-time employees as well as 50% discounted permits on a few lots that are underutilized.
Additionally, Nickerson said after the meeting that the city collected about $147,000 from parking tickets during fiscal year 2023. Those funds, along with other parking revenue, help pay a $500,000 loan that the city took for new meters and parking kiosks that were installed in 2019. That debt is now about $350,000.
Riley Tubbs, who is a co-founder of 10 Mile Brewery, during the meeting questioned the transportation department’s budget, specifically what it pays its four parking officers.
“It seems to be that we’re going up against a brick wall where you guys might add in some special spots for some employees,” said Tubbs. “ … Taking away two of the ticket people would pay for every ticket in the downtown.”
Helena resident Paul Pacini said that the downtown community needs to get past the fact that the parking equipment was installed and focus on finding alternative ways of paying off that debt, besides parking fees and tickets.
“There needs to be a different source of revenue, whatever that is, so that we can use our streets for parking, whether it’s employee parking, or customer parking, or residential parking. And without having to worry about how are we going to pay for these damn parking meters. We need a different source of revenue.”
City manager Tim Burton suggested that a group of downtown representatives continue talking and looking for solutions.
“I think that if we leave this meeting today with the ability to more structure our conversation so that we can do good analysis and make your policy decisions, not only the ability to pay back the debt but also to enhance the experience for people who are using your businesses,” Burton said.
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