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Warsaw Mayor Jeff Grose, pictured left, gives the oath of office to Max Maile during a Monday, Feb. 2, Warsaw Common Council meeting for the Warsaw Board of Zoning Appeals. Maile, who sits on the Warsaw Plan Commission, will also now serve on the Warsaw BZA, replacing Dave Baumgartner. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union.<\/p>\n
By David Slone
Times-Union<\/p>\n
WARSAW \u2013 Ordinances require two readings by the Warsaw Common Council to pass, and Monday night, Feb. 2, the city council passed two ordinances regarding downtown parking on second reading. <\/p>\n
The ordinances unanimously passed on first reading at the council\u2019s Jan. 20 meeting. In presenting the first ordinance, which deals with fines for parking ordinance violations, City Planner Justin Taylor said there was nothing new in the ordinance since the council last saw it Jan. 20. Two amendments were added per the council\u2019s request, which were ADA parking violation fines would be $125 for the first offense and $250 for the second; and the immobilization fee was changed to $150 for the first time and $300 for the subsequent times. <\/p>\n
\u201cLooking at how to manage parking in our downtown, listening to downtown business owners and trying to address those concerns as far as consistency, enforcement, managing growth and increasing that turnover that we want to see downtown,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is one piece of that puzzle that we\u2019ve identified as a potential issue where we wanted to adjust the fees for the parking tickets, changing those violations from the initial $10 when we started to $25 and go from there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Councilman Mike Klondaris asked if anyone had received any feedback on the ordinance or had heard from anyone. None of the council members indicated they had, but Taylor said he received one call from a man who had a few general questions about the ordinance. No one from the public was present at the Jan. 20 or Monday\u2019s council meetings. <\/p>\n
Councilwoman Cindy Dobbins made the motion to approve the ordinance on second reading, Councilman Jerry Frush seconded it, and it passed 6-0. Council President Jack Wilhite was absent.<\/p>\n
Taylor then presented the second ordinance, which relates to the actual implementation of the city\u2019s new parking system.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a more modern system. It also would enable us to limit the space shuffling within the downtown parking zone,\u201d he stated. <\/p>\n
Mayor Jeff Grose said, \u201cThe change really is no change. No change from the two hours of free parking. It\u2019s what life will be like after that if someone decides not to follow that.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the parking system will probably start in the spring, go through a trial and then start to go into enforcement in the summer. The city will be able to re-evaluate it as they go.<\/p>\n
With the modern system, the two code enforcement officers won\u2019t need pencil and pens and paper. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019ll be better for everybody when we think about downtown and code enforcement,\u201d Grose said. <\/p>\n
Councilman Josh Finch reiterated the first two hours of parking downtown will be free. If a person needs to stay longer, they will need to initiate a parking session. The third hour will be $3, and every hour after that will be $1. The penalty for not starting a parking session and going over the first two free hours will be a $25 fine.<\/p>\n
The parking rules apply from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Klondaris asked Taylor when he anticipated it taking effect.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have some work to do still. If this is approved, then we have our signs, the city will get the installation of those started. And then we\u2019ll work with (Warsaw Police Department) on how to roll out the warning period. They\u2019ve got some technology to learn. They have all the units. We have the signs that we\u2019re going to install, so it\u2019s just a matter of starting to set those up,\u201d Taylor said. <\/p>\n
Councilwoman Diane Quance made the motion to approve the ordinance on second reading, Finch seconded it and it passed 6-0.<\/p>\n
In other business, at the start of the meeting, Grose gave the oath of office to Max Maile for the Board of Zoning Appeals. Maile already serves on the Warsaw Plan Commission, but he now will join the BZA, replacing Dave Baumgartner. <\/p>\n
Clerk-Treasurer Lynne Christiansen reminded everyone the next council meeting will be at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 17, due to Presidents\u2019 Day on Monday, Feb. 16. City meetings are being held in the WPD training facility in February due to HVAC work being done in the council chambers at City Hall.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Warsaw Mayor Jeff Grose, pictured left, gives the oath of office to Max Maile during a Monday, Feb.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":103930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[128,130,129],"class_list":{"0":"post-103929","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-reading-city","9":"tag-reading-city-headlines","10":"tag-reading-city-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}