The parking kiosks are another nail in the coffin for Downtown Chico. The city held a meeting with Downtown business owners the other day, even invited customers. Not only are people disgruntled, one attendee got a parking ticket during the meeting, even after he’d paid for his parking space.
Here’s something that was mentioned at the meeting that is not mentioned anywhere on the city website – if you use your credit card for these machines, you pay a credit card fee every time you park or add time to your meter. Wow. I remember when ATM’s came out, they were great! My husband used his card to buy lunch almost daily – the first month, he racked up over $30 in fees – at that time, that was about six lunches. That was the end of our ATM days. That’s one reason we are really careful how we use our debit and credit cards as well.
Thing is, if you want to use coin, aside from having a bag of coins stashed in your car, you need to drive to the kiosk, find “available parking”, get out of your car and feed the machine. Then you drive back to your space – what, and hope nobody took it? What?
Here’s something that was not mentioned at the recent meeting, but has been discussed in those day meetings – the meter has your app, and from that point on, it tracks your phone. You know you can be tracked with your phone right? You get those creepy reports from Google telling you where you’ve been the last 30 days? Former City Ass Mangler Chris Constantin reported that staff was using cell phones to track people during COVID, driving out to wherever they spotted “congregations” so they could threaten those businesses with sanctions.
Well, now the city is using your phone to watch your shopping habits. They want to know certain details, such as how far you have to walk to spend money after you park your car, they discussed that. They call it “marketing research“, I call it, “Big Brother is watching you…” And now Big Brother can send you advertising based on your shopping habits – don’t you just love those ads that slow down your mailbox? If you don’t think that’s creepy, you might want to watch Batman Forever, we have achieved Edward Nigma’s “box”.
Councilman Tom Van Overbeek has admitted as much, saying in his letter to the editor that this app will track you and make sure you are either out of that parking space or get a ticket. I wonder what they intend to do about the Downtown business owner who walked into that meeting waving a paid receipt and a parking ticket.
People have accused me at times of just complaining without offering any solutions. Various businesses offered their solutions at the meeting – most want free parking days or hours, such as free parking until 11am. They are willing to accept the kiosks, as long as there’s a way to wheedle out of it.
Here’s what my husband thinks, and I’ll agree: Downtown just shot itself in the foot again. For us it doesn’t matter – not personally – we don’t own a business there, and we haven’t patronized any business Downtown for years. But, I’ve watched one council after another pour out money for a “viable Downtown” – just throwing good money after bad. Whenever the government gets too involved in the private sector, you get problems. A viable retail sector runs itself. The city has thrown it’s dick in, and that’s where the problems are coming from. All they want out of those meters, is revenues, let’s face it. That’s what Van Overbeek seemed to be concerned with – how fast the ticketing process works. And then he blames college students – that would be funny, if it weren’t so insulting.
Van Overbeek and his cronies on council refuse to listen to the survey they ran a few years ago – people want a “clean, safe” Downtown. They meant, they don’t want bums breaking into their cars, looking over their shoulders at their ATM’s, or putting their hand on their car door to ask for a handout. They don’t want to have to lead their children down a sidewalk with filthy people sprawled out over it, or encounter human feces in front of a business entry. Use a public bathroom? Forget it. And that’s daytime. Add darkness and drunks, and Downtown becomes completely family UN-friendly at night.
Actions this council has taken very recently have just been more nails in the coffin – $1 an hour to park? Wow, there’s acres of free parking and more retail options at malls and retail centers all over town. Yeah, Raw Bar is nice, but Big Tuna and Izakaya Ichiban are just as good, less expensive, and – here’s the thing – have free parking and other retail options in the same center. And no bum tents or sprawling drunks or feces in the doorway. There are streets all over town like Nord and East that feed major retail centers, that haven’t been maintained properly for many years. But they’re putting a quarter of a million in American Rescue Money into parklets for bars Downtown?
One bail-out after another, and Downtown is still in trouble. Want to know why? While they play around with the candy toppings, they don’t provide any substance. The sewer hasn’t been maintained for 100 years. That’s what’s really going to tank Downtown – they will have to shut it down for a couple of years to tear out the streets to fix the sewer. Where will they get the money for that?
Next time, on This Old Lady…
Chico Taxpayers Association 