{"id":6336,"date":"2017-08-06T14:17:56","date_gmt":"2017-08-06T21:17:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/?p=6336"},"modified":"2025-12-06T14:19:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T22:19:11","slug":"parking-in-placerville-words-by-wendy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/2017\/08\/06\/parking-in-placerville-words-by-wendy\/","title":{"rendered":"Parking in Placerville — Words by Wendy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wendy Thomas]<\/em><\/p>\n

PARKING in Downtown Placerville\u2026<\/strong>It\u2019s a new system with increased hours and cost, and it is sparking heated debate and angry concern among merchants and the community.<\/p>\n

We acknowledge there are challenges.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0We\u2019d like you to know we\u2019re working on them.<\/em><\/p>\n

Staff will provide the City Council with an update on the Parking Program on Tuesday, August 8th<\/sup><\/strong>\u00a0although we are fully aware of the conversation and concerns of the community. In addition, the Parking Committee has been interfacing with Staff on this issue and they will be working with the merchant community to fully understand the problems while they collaborate on potential solutions. I have no doubt that we are in a period of transition and that the current parking program can be tweaked successfully. \u00a0We can figure this out!<\/em><\/p>\n

As I have been challenged to think critically about this issue, here are some ideas I\u2019ve found helpful:<\/p>\n

ACCEPT \u201cWHAT IS\u201d. \u00a0<\/strong>We have a new parking program. It\u2019s totally different. People are confused about it. There are problems with it. There are also critically important reasons for some of the changes. The task before us is to acknowledge all of this, without extreme emotion, so we can employ rational thought to the challenge. \u00a0We can\u2019t go back to where we were, so the next step is to accept\u00a0\u201cwhat is\u201d<\/em>\u00a0at this moment in time so we can move forward productively.<\/p>\n

Then what?<\/em><\/p>\n

OBSERVE AND DECIDE. \u00a0(<\/strong>I think we\u2019re right in the middle of this course of action.)<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0We are observing how the current Parking Program is working and are understanding what the exact problems are that need to be addressed. \u00a0I also found it helpful to realize that just because a program isn\u2019t perfect right off the bat doesn\u2019t mean it should be immediately discarded. Life is full of trial and error. Action and redirection. It\u2019s kind of like parenting. No one does it perfectly from the get-go. You make mistakes. You try something new, see how that works. You get better as you go. It\u2019s as simple as that. As for parking, we\u2019ll talk to each other and understand what exactly isn\u2019t working for the customer, the merchant, the employee, the taxpayer, and then we\u2019ll decide on potential solutions.<\/p>\n

EMBRACE CHANGE.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0(This is an area we tend to struggle with as a community).<\/em>\u00a0It is important to understand we\u00a0had<\/em>\u00a0to change the old parking program. Did you know that the old meters were broken? \u00a0Did you know they were so old that parts were not available and that the company was no longer servicing them? Did you know that the $1 per hour fee for parking had stayed the same for over 10 years? Did you know that the old Parking Program wasn\u2019t paying for itself and that NO money was being set aside for the repair and maintenance of our parking garage and parking lots? We had to make a change\u2026it would have been irresponsible not too.<\/p>\n

So here we are.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Parking Program has some challenges.\u00a0What initial effort doesn\u2019t? We don\u2019t need to be completely undone by this fact. Our response doesn\u2019t have to be a knee jerk reaction like\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m never shopping in Placerville again!\u201d<\/em>. \u00a0We can make productive changes to the Parking Program which ensure that our customers have adequate parking, that our merchants and the taxpayers are not unduly burdened, and that we have the resources we need to maintain our parking facilities.<\/p>\n

My goodness, if we can tame the Wild West, we can tweak our parking program!<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll see you on Main Street. Wendy.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wendy Thomas] PARKING in Downtown Placerville\u2026It\u2019s a new system with increased hours and cost, and it is sparking<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":"","thumbnail":"","medium":"","medium_large":"","large":"","1536x1536":"","2048x2048":"","darknews-slider-full":"","darknews-featured":"","darknews-medium":"","darknews-medium-square":""},"author_info":{"display_name":"News MoLo","author_link":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/author\/admin\/"},"category_info":"News<\/a>","tag_info":"News","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6336"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6336"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6337,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6336\/revisions\/6337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}