Letter: Parklets are a big waste of $851,651 in taxpayer money
Dear editor,
– The Paso Robles City Council is now considering allowing restaurants to take up precious downtown parking spaces with parklets. There will be a workshop at Paso Robles City Hall on Tuesday, March 21, 3-5 p.m. They are also considering changing the downtown parking fees to $2 per hour, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week, every day of the year. I have the following concerns:
Why should the city council just limit this to restaurants? Let’s have all businesses spread out into the street: nail salons, shoe stores, sporting goods, cell phone providers, art galleries, wineries (you can drink alcohol in a parklet). Just allowing restaurants to take over our parking spots is prejudiced against other types of businesses.
Parklets take up too many precious parking spaces. Would the City of Paso Robles have a deficit for their parking fees/cost of parking control if we didn’t have parklets for the last couple of years? How many paid parking spaces would we have revenue from if we didn’t have parklets? How much did restaurants pay for the extra space to do business?
How much is the deficit on the cost of our downtown parking system? Quote from NextDoor Paso Robles taxpayer: “…the company who sold us the program (Dixon) and the City Council who will not admit that we have an albatross around our necks and we need to cut our losses. Dixon sold the program with the promise of being cost-neutral in 5 years. We’re 3 years in, still $700k in debt, with no end in sight.” Now parklets will add to this deficit!
Restaurants get free rent to do business at the taxpayer’s expense?
We are not just looking at a loss of revenue, it is costing us even more for the comfort of tourists. The City of Paso Robles put aside $100,000 for propane for heaters for the parklets and also approved payment of $8,100 per month to rent the barriers — using our tax money.
Downtown sidewalks are already too crowded and narrow for all the foot traffic we have. If a restaurant owner wants outdoor seating, he/she should have rented a space with outdoor seating, like Pappy McGregor’s and Catch restaurants.
The parklets destroy the charm of our downtown. Most of the time they are empty—too hot during the day and too cold at night. The Paso Robles City Council has come up with a lot of bad ideas, let’s stop this one now.
Kristene Thompson
Paso Robles Voter and Taxpayer
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