Council discusses parking ordinance, township contracts WATCH THE VIDEO

A representative of the Hillsboro Uptown Business Assocaition (HUBA) addressed the Hillsboro City Council Monday to ask that the city once again take a look at enforcing uptown parking regulations.

Brent Huffman, HUBA vice president, asked council, during its regular April meeting, to consider enforcement, as well as looking into extending the amount of time one patron is allowed to park in a space.

"We would like to come to council to see what can be done about enforcing the existing parking ordinance, the two-hour uptown parking ordinance uptown," Huffman said. "We're getting more businesses and it's bringing more people to the center of town. We really want to be able to provide our customers with the ability to have a place to park, so they can shop and spend money."

Huffman said that he has had customers tell him, and other business owners, they had intended to patronize a certain store, but after circling uptown blocks several times looking for a parking space, they gave up and went home.

The uptown parking issue has been brought to council before in recent years, and placed into committee for review. The previous city administration had reported that with the Hillsboro Police Department functioning with five officers down, their time is spent on other matters rather than writing parking tickets. In years past, the city had considered hiring a meter maid, and increasing the fines for parking tickets, but those ideas were ultimately deemed cost prohibitive, or could potentially discourage uptown business.

Dave Shoemaker, who was acting as council's president pro tem in the absence of council president Lee Koogler, asked Huffman if he was asking council to revisit the parking ordinance.

"It hasn't been enforced for a long time," Huffman said. He suggested the city increase it to three hours so people have enough time to spend uptown, but then enforce that time limit.

Huffman said that in some cases, employees at some uptown businesses are using parking spaces all day and do not receive tickets.

Hillsboro Mayor Drew Hastings said, "It's been brought up, I know, by a lot of us over the last few years. If you'll call the office this week, I actually started sketching out plans on how we can create some parking uptown, and I was hoping to actually get with you, get your group's input. Because I'm going to need your help on a little bit of support from the uptown business owners. But I think that I've got a way that we can do this, not just parking enforcement, but I've found where we can park a number of people. It's a start. It's 22 spaces, but it's a start."

Hastings did not elaborate further on where the additional spaces may be, but he asked Huffman to make an appointment with his office for further discussion.

Shoemaker placed the matter in the street and safety committee.

During the mayor's report, Hastings said referenced that Paint Township had declined to contract with the city for EMS and fire coverage.

"Obviously, the biggest news, probably, to you is that we are continuing discussions with the townships," Hastings said, addressing council. "As you know Paint (township) fell by the wayside. We kind of figured ... with that we kind of saw it coming. It's created a budget hole. We're not overly concerned about it. It's something that will have to be dealt with. It will be dealt with. We've got a number of options we're looking at to plug that hole."

Hillsboro Auditor Gary Lewis had estimated that the city will lose $126,000 in revenue in 2012 with the loss of the Paint Township contract. Hillsboro Safety and Service Director Rick Giroux said that the city is looking at all options, but that it will most likely offset the loss with a combination of "operation expenses and probably manpower expenses."

Shoemaker asked Hastings and Giroux if the other townships had signed on with the city. Giroux said that deputy Hillsboro Law Director Laura Curliss was handling the township issues. Curliss said that the five remaining townships - Hamer, Jackson, Liberty, New Market and Washington townships - had signed on with the city for EMS and fire services.

"I certainly want to see us move forward with, not only the contacts, but the district also that we've been talking about, and to get this thing moving forward," Shoemaker said.

Giroux said, "Mr. President, I can say, on behalf of the administration, that we are just as anxious."

• While there were no council committee meetings during the previous month, street and safety committee chairperson Brian Waller said that he intended to have one soon regarding the parking issue. Shoemaker, chairperson of the utilities committee, said that he had met individually with Giroux and utilities office employee Mona Parker regarding her ideas on changes to the utilities ordinance.

Giroux said that Parker and Curliss had met and "redrafted" ordinances to bring them up to date, and with possible presentation to council during an upcoming meeting. A resolution to authorize the position of utilities office manager had been up for its third and final reading on Monday, but Shoemaker removed it from consideration by council. There had not been enough information for the utilities committee to meet, Shoemaker said, and that the final reading of the resolution "can be brought forward at any time, once we have all our ducks in a row."