City Takes No Action On 24 Hour Parking Ordinance

Tuesday’s Madison Daily Leader followed up on the Madison City Commission’s decision on Monday night to take no action on extending the current 24-hour parking limiting after it was brought into question by Craig Miller on April 13^th. Cory has previously stated the absurdity of requiring residences to use their transportation at least once every 24 hours if it is parked on the streets. Monday night’s lack of action not only continued that absurdity, but brought in failed logic and reasoning in keep the ordinance. Heath VonEye, the city’s public works director, cited two reasons why the ordinance should be left intact.

Issue #1: Nuisance Vehicles VonEye said the ordinance was in place for “mainly discouraging residents from parking autos under repair, recreationally vehicles, boats, and other vehicles curbside for long periods (Madison Daily Leader’s Chuck Clement’s words, not VonEye’s). Commissioner Scott Delzer also used this issue as his issue to not seek any change according to the article.

Easy Solution #1: If the problem is people parking something curbside for a long period of time, create an ordinance that addresses that problem and prohibits parking for long-periods. One day is not a long period of time, a weekend isn’t, a week maybe is.

Issue #2: DSU Students VonEye also stated that if the ordinance allowed for more than 24 hours, it could be brought to abuse by DSU students. Many DSU students only need a car to get to Madison and to leave Madison. Everything (classrooms, food, and a place to live) is all on campus so some students may leave their cars sitting for weeks or months at a time.

Easy Solution #2: Once again, have a solution that addresses the problem. If the problem is a couple of blocks around campus, make those 24 hour parking areas or no parking past 1:00 A.M. (just like most streets around DSU already are). Extending those policies to a couple more streets around DSU would effectively solve this issue.

There is no need for a sweeping policy that affects the entire city when the issues can be addressed specifically in the areas of concern. Some intersections in town are problematic. In order to solve that, the city puts up stop signs at those intersections, but doesn’t require stop signs at all intersections in towns. Use this same type of approach to parking to effectively handle this issue.

But perhaps what was most troublesome in the Leader’s article was newly elected Commissioner Nick Abraham’s take on the situation which he called “unfortunate” (Clement’s words, not necessarily Abraham’s). Nick, if you feel a citizen’s concern brought before you is unfortunate, it’s your job to do something about it. A citizen does not come before the commission to hear that their case is unfortunate; they come there to get action done. Furthermore, to have a citizen come before the commission only to be brushed off as unfortunate disencourages citizen participation in city government. You set the message that the city government is ineffective and won’t do anything to right a wrong. If this is the message that you set, do you expect Mr. Miller or any other citizen to ever come before you again with an issue?

I hope the Madison City Commission can rebound from this, apply effective logic and reasoning to current and future city ordinance and will take actions on citizen’s legitimate concerns. I hope the Madison City Commission hasn’t adopted the city’s slogan of “Discover the Unexpected.”