The same city council members considering whether to raise parking fines in Athens can park in the middle of the Uptown area free of charge.
So can the city employees who distribute parking tickets.
The five parking enforcement employees and eight council members, including the council president, make up 13 of the 112 people who get free passes to park in the city's parking garage on the corner of College and Washington Streets, according to city records. Others who get parking garage passes include those who work in the city building, police officers and even work-study students and members of various city boards who aren't actually on the city payroll, said personnel director Beverly Henderson, who administers the passes.
The 112 city-employee spots come out of the 270 spots in the garage that are open to the public, said city service-safety director Ray Hazlett. The garage has 368 total spaces, but 76 are for monthly reserved parking, 16 are set aside for people who have purchased a monthly reserve pass but do not have a designated space and six are handicapped spaces, he said.
A monthly pass to park in the garage costs $85, and meters cost 25 cents for 22 minutes.
Letting council members park free in the city garage encourages them to do city-related work, said councilwoman Carol Patterson, D-at large. Patterson, who does not have a full-time job, said she uses the city building as an office of sorts because she would rather not use it than her home.
I just have my house
and I don't want everybody at my house she said. It's a sort of way to encourage us to be more involved attend more meetings.
Council members are among 36 part-time employees who get passes to park in the city garage, according to city records. City records show an additional 22 people not listed on the city's payroll also get passes, but they are either work-study students or members of various city boards, such as the board of zoning appeals, Henderson said.
I'm not issuing permits to just anyone who comes along
she said. If they're working in one of our buildings
yeah
they're also given that benefit.
The parking garage receives money from the city's general fund to pay for employee parking, but it also pays the general fund for city services, such as garage maintenance.
The garage receives $30,600 from the general fund, but it pays the fund back $18,023, according to its budget for 2007. The garage also uses revenue to pay a $350,000 outstanding debt from repairs that cost about $2 million five years ago, Hazlett said. Council recently approved paying $150,000 of that debt.
The garage annually makes about $178,000 from its meters and $70,700 from its monthly spaces, according to its 2007 budget.
Henderson defended giving the passes to full and part time employees despite the expense, saying employers commonly provide parking to their employees.
Would you like to come here and work as a student for $6.85 an hour and have to pay for parking? she said. We couldn't get anyone to work here (without the parking passes).
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Matt Zapotosky
