Overtime parking fees triple tomorrow, WINA reports. City Council raised those fees at their February 5th meeting. (Councilors Richards and Toscano voting against doing so.) It’ll now cost you $15 for parking too long, or $30 if you don’t pay within a few days. Yup, there’s nothing like raising parking fines to get people to come downtown.
News and meta-news about Charlottesville, VA, since 2001.
Sideblog
Police announced this afternoon that their investigation into what was initially believed to be a fatal fire on Rugby Avenue is now a homicide investigation. #
The Virginia Supreme Court has denied George Huguely’s appeal. His second-degree murder conviction will stand, WRIC reports. #
In a carefully worded story, and not citing specific sources, WTVR reports that forensic evidence belonging to Jesse Matthew Jr., the main suspect in the disappearance of Hannah Graham, matches forensic evidence collected during the investigation of Morgan Harrington’s 2009 murder. #
In the wake of Hannah Graham’s disappearance, and the evidence that came from private security footage, city officials are revisiting the question of installing security cameras on the downtown mall. #
Both Charlottesville Registrar Sheri Iachetta and former Electoral Board member Stephanie Commander have turned themselves in to the police on
foursix and four felony counts of embezzlement, respectively. #Ten years ago, the National Institutes of Health budget doubled and schools like the University of Virginia built massive new research facilities. A decade later, those buildings remain largely underutilized. NPR visits UVA in this story on the effect of federal binge and spurge spending in the sciences. #
In 2012, Council approved a new student housing complex on West Main—now some council members are questioning whether what they were shown matches what was built. #
The Architectural Review Board has approved a bike-themed mural on West Market, below the McGuffey Art Center, although at least one member expressed concerns that it might look like the bicyclists were riding away from Charlottesville’s downtown. #
City Police Chief Tim Longo is meeting with city leaders to work on protocols regarding the use of military surplus police weapons in Charlottesville. #
A 100-year-old Colonnades resident received military honors for her service in the WWII Women’s Army Corps #
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I think that what really bothers me about this is that it’s mostly an assault on downtown businesses. It’s reasonably to provide just two hours of free parking to folks coming downtown to shop. It’s too bad that we can’t offer longer parking, but there are garages, and two hours is reasonable.
The problem is for folks that work downtown. There are quite literally no parking spaces available for downtown employees. One of our employee benefits is downtown parking. But that’s been suspended now that the Omni has stopped leasing spaces by the month. The main garages have a waiting list that’s 18 months ago. So all that us business owners can say to our employees is “hey, good luck.”
As a result, everybody ends up playing the car-shuffle game, using up spaces that should be offered to folks shopping downtown. But without other options for those of us that work downtown, it’s wholly unreasonable of the city to raise fines in an effort to prevent us from parking in these spaces.
Without other options, Charlottesville has made a big mistake in raising fines. They’re driving people out to these soulless office parks up Route 29, and we’ll end up right back where we were 10 years ago. So, City Councilors, either build a couple of garages, or stop punishing us for operating our businesses in the city.
Waldo