GREENFIELD — After Mayor Ginny Desorgher requested that the Parking & Traffic Commission reconsider its policy for parking at the Olive Street Parking Garage during large events, commission members opted to recommend no changes to the garage’s parking fee structure at this time.
The topic arose after Desorgher emailed Community and Economic Development Director Amy Cahillane requesting that the commission discuss parking rates during large events.
“Can you bring to the [Parking & Traffic] Commission to reevaluate parking in the garage during big events at the fairgrounds?” the mayor wrote in an email. “Neighbors are charging $30 for the day. Should we be charging more?”
The city website states that the garage’s top floor of the Olive Street Parking Garage is free from spring through fall, with the first hour of parking on any of the garage’s floors always free. For the last three years, however, the city has provided free parking at the garage, as well as a shuttle service to the Franklin County Fairgrounds on Wisdom Way, during large events such as the Green River Festival or the Franklin County Fair.
Parking Enforcement Supervisor Judi Brown, at the commission’s meeting last week, explained that the mayor’s request to discuss rates came in response to neighbors who live close to the venue charging more than $25 for a day of parking.
Noting that garage spots occupied during fairgrounds events can be otherwise used by the general community, Parking & Traffic Commission member Jean Wall said she hoped to see the city charge for parking at the garage during large events, just as it would during any other time of the year.
“Anybody who parks in the garage should pay the garage rate,” Wall said. “It could just be people who are downtown at that particular time eating in the restaurants or going to the movies.”
Commission Chair Sebastian Gutwein said he agreed with Wall’s remarks, but made note of the fact that downtown parking during these large-scale events serves as an economic boost for local businesses, as festivalgoers might later shop or dine in Greenfield.
“I do not believe we should be charging more [for larger events]. If that’s the rate, that should be the rate,” Gutwein said. “If people are parking at a big event in spaces that wouldn’t normally be occupied, it’s not really costing the town any more to have parking there, and in theory, having events at the fairgrounds and more people here benefits the town. … The cost to try to figure out how to charge more for those time periods is more than the benefit and definitely more than we would lose in potential goodwill from people coming through the town for the first time and being like, ‘OK, this is annoying.'”
After commission members discussed the city’s current parking enforcement practices, which include not enforcing parking on weekends or in the evenings after 5 p.m., commission member Michael Mullin said he hopes the commission will review its general parking enforcement practices.
“I’m at least partial to the view that if it’s free, you will get overconsumption. If I made terrible cookies, but I put them on the counter for free, people might take them who might not have otherwise,” Mullin said. “Rather than look at big events, we might want to just consider a broadening of our current parking regime. … I find it hard to imagine how we make the call and then how we implement collecting a higher rate.”
Desorgher could not be reached for further comment on the topic.