Glens Falls’ ‘Quality of Life’ committee will meet Aug. 17 on parking plan

By Cathy DeDe, Chronicle Managing Editor

Sean Palladino, the Ward 5 Glens Falls Common Council member who chairs the Quality of Life committee, is charged with revisiting the parking permit resolution that was tabled on July 28.

The committee will meet Monday, Aug. 17, at 5 p.m. in City Hall.

Other committee members are Ward 3’s Dan Rice, Ward 1’s Dan Donohue — who is also on the Finance Committee that researched permit fees — and Councilperson at Large Mary Gooden.

The parking issue was previously considered by the Quality of Life Committee.

Mr. Palladino said the first time he saw last Tuesday’s parking permit resolution “written out,” was when the meeting agenda was posted the Saturday before.

“It would be a big change basically to silo those three lots to be like Clinton Avenue (garage),” he says, “where only people with permits can go there.

“With the fact that those three parking spots are the most highly valued, taking those away really would, as everyone noted, cause a lot of issues with businesses.”

He said his own outreach and a Chronicle article posted online alerted the public to the agenda item, and drew a crowd.

Mr. Palladino said of Tuesday’s meeting, “Even though it was a contentious issue, I enjoyed it so much because it really showed that people do care, and wanted to come to a meeting.

“It was the most well-run public comment. I guess Saratoga has had some issues sometimes with yelling and stuff. This was very calm and measured. It was kind of perfect with all the different comments from business owners to residents to visitors.”

Mr. Palladino said he is composing a survey on the subject he expects to go live within days, pending input from the Mayor and others. Check the City website, or his Facebook page for updates.

Following up, he says, “Dan Rice has done amazing work in terms of compiling the data.”

Mr. Rice tells The Chronicle he gathered public comments from the meeting, as well as subsequent messages received by the City.

“I basically synthesized that into a memo or general framework as to what people are looking for. We received a very large number of comments, and it covered a lot. We’ll see whether, what changes we want to make to that resolution.”

Mr. Palladino said he’d received “dozens of emails, just for me and I’m sure there’s many more to others in the City…

“As the Mayor said, it’s half the room thinks this, part of the room thinks this, but we’re trying to meet in the middle.”

Mr. Palladino said, “There’s an email chat going with (City Attorney Taylor Basford), as well as me and a few others, consolidating all the issues…and then trying to figure out a solution.”

He cites, for example: “Loss of customer and short-term parking, the enforcement issue of not really on weekends, accessibility parking”

He said he’s looking to consider more accessible parking, language to deal with reserving short-term public and customer parking, ensuring that spaces are visually marked for expected uses.

Mr. Rice said of the proposed fee schedule, “If we could keep that lower and then step it up over the course of a few years, that might be one path. It seemed like the members of the Audit and Finance Committee felt pretty confident that this was the right way to go, the higher prices….

“I wanted to see whether we received comments back from the Business Improvement District and the Downtown Collaborative people. I’ll be looking for comments like that as well.”

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