CALDWELL, Idaho — Caldwell City Council voted on the downtown parking meters on Friday afternoon. They are now a thing of the past.
Council held a special meeting to discuss and vote on two agenda items.
- Effective immediately, stop the requirement of drivers to pay the meters.
- Not renew the operations contract with the parking meter management company.
Both of those items were passed. Although the contract ends at the end of September, requirements to pay the meters ended Friday with the vote.
The decisions come after several months of complaints from downtown businesses who claim business has been down since the meters went live.
Earlier this week councilmember Diana Register raised legal concerns about the equipment agreement the city has with Car Park, the parking meter management company.
The equipment contract takes care of the cost of the physical parking meters. That is different than the operations agreement which takes care of day-to-day operations of the meters.
The operations agreement was approved by the city council. But Register claims the equipment agreement was never approved or shown to the council, which is against Idaho Code, she said.
It's unclear how that happened. Register told KTVB she is concerned that it would deem the equipment agreement invalid. She's asked the city to delay the payment of that agreement until the city can receive answers on the status of the agreement.
"We want to make sure that we follow the law 100% in regard to notices that need to be sent out for RFPs, in regard to contracts that are done... our city attorneys are looking into that," Mayor Jarom Wagoner told KTVB after Friday's vote.
He added the city attorney is "double checking" everything and he's confident the city followed the rules for the meter project.
Starting Friday, the city is changing the verbiage on the parking meters to let drivers know they do not need to pay for parking. Wagoner said eventually, the meters would be removed.
Council will continue to discussion on how best to regulate parking in the future, so that they don't run back into the problem of it being hard to find a parking spot downtown.