Meeting to discuss paid parking on the square scheduled for Monday, April 19

For the past several weeks, the City of Fayetteville has been working on a plan to implement paid parking in the Dickson St. area.

On Monday, April 19, city officials will hold a public meeting to discuss a proposal to add the downtown square area to the paid parking plan.

Adding the square to the paid parking discussion is a response to concern from some Dickson Street merchants who say that if parking was free, or less expensive on the square, they might lose business to the downtown area.

Some of the changes expected to be discussed include abolishing the free two-hour parking on the square, and raising the prices on the meters to be more in line with what will be changed on Dickson Street.

“Right now in the downtown area, the parking meter rate is a quarter per hour, which has not been raised in a number of years,” parking and telecommunications manager Sharon Crosson told the City Council on Tuesday. “The Dickson Street merchants wanted it to be equitable, so if it’s 50 cents an hour on Dickson Street, it would be 50 cents an hour up here so they aren’t competing with the restaurants up here.”

A draft of the proposed changes to the downtown parking plan, including some pricing details was posted to the city website earlier this week, but was removed at the request of the mayor.

“I want to make it perfectly clear that nothing is chiseled in stone, and that we want to hear from the public on this,” Mayor Jordan told us Friday. “That’s why we’ve scheduled the meeting on Monday.”

Also expected to be on the agenda for Monday’s meeting are proposed citation rates for those who do not pay for parking.

The public meeting will be held Monday, April 19, 2010, at 4:00 p.m. in Room 111 at City Hall.