By Megan Kelley
Review Writer
LAKE ORION — Parking meters were once again a topic of conversation at Lake Orion’s village council meeting on April 10 with the council voting 5-2 to request proposals for installation of parking meters downtown.
The topic of parking meters is one that is often discussed by both the council and the Lake Orion Downtown Development Authority board but is not something that has ever fully come to fruition despite several members of both the council and DDA board being proponents for the idea.
“We’ve been talking about getting funding for the village for a long time. We’ve been talking about parking meters for a long time. Nothing has been done. We’ve been talking about fixing everything in this village. Nothing has been done. So, after discussion, people are talking about parking meters. Why not get a proposal from a parking meter company to give us a price?” said Councilmember Michael Lamb who made the original request to have the topic added to the agenda.
According to a recent parking study done by the DDA, there is not currently a parking “problem”; however, as development increases in the village, the study recommends downtown Lake Orion increase parking over the next three to five years, DDA documents show.
Where the real issue comes from currently is the lack of parking enforcement, especially on the Broadway and Flint Streets, where car’s will park in the two hour and even 15 minute parking spots for extended periods of time with little or no recourse as far as ticketing or towing. The parking study in 2022 stated that the village has an enforcement issue.
Essentially the idea is that parking meters on the main streets would help solve two problems at once: it would create another form of revenue for the village and would alleviate some of the current parking problems.
“We can see how much money we can make off of parking meters. We can find out if parking meters in front of the businesses will drive all the freeloaders over to the free lots where they can be free and then the people that want to use the businesses can get in and out and they can pay a couple bucks. We can make some money and everything will be happy,” Lamb said.
“I’ve heard numerous reports from residents who tell me ‘Oh, this guy down the street parks in front of my building all the time. He goes over to Fork N’ Pint, there’s this guy that parks there all day and night,’ and we have a business community that needs support and since most of the people going to the businesses downtown aren’t from our community, they need to be able to park in front of the businesses. They need to park and they need to go, that way they can buy things, drink and eat food,” Lamb said.
Despite the number of presentations about parking meters and parking enforcement alternatives that have occurred at DDA meetings over the years, one council member felt that there still wasn’t enough information to move forward with the request that night.
“I’m not ready to act on this tonight. I am a proponent of pay for parking in our community but times have changed. We did gather some information on this approximately four years ago and a lot of things had changed. At that time we were utilizing Rochester and watching Royal Oak and I’d like to do some due diligence and talk to both those communities about how they have seen this go forth with them,” said Council member Ken Van Portfliet.
Another council member who has been relatively against paid parking in downtown, was not opposed to gathering more information by requesting proposals.
“I generally am not in favor of paid parking only because I actively avoid communities that have paid parking, I don’t go to them because it’s just often inconvenient even with the app,” said President Pro-tem Teresa Rutt. “That said, even though I have an aversion to them, I’m not opposed to getting information. But along with that information, I would like to know how it impacts communities that have gone from free parking to paid parking. How has it impacted businesses? How has it impacted communities in the long term?”
Council President Jerry Narsh, who served on the parking committee several years ago as the Lake Orion police chief, had a measured response.
“I’m not opposed to hearing any bit of information one way or the other, it’s which one serves our community the best,” Narsh said. “We have to look at the scope of where these meters are going to be. They’re not just going to be on this street or that street, we also do our parking lots. Most parking studies incorporate those optics. Do you do all parking? Who’s going to pay for those? I believe the last time we did this study, we found that they were extremely expensive and we began to look at a private/public partnership as to how we could fund that infrastructure. I’m not opposed to the discussion or the debate but I certainly don’t think we’re ready to go out for bids.”
Lamb reiterated that his request was to simply get proposals, not a bid, from a parking company on putting meters on every business street in the village, not an actual purchase of anything.
Van Portfliet again stated that he did not like the timing and would like to hear from the DDA before moving forward with the request.
Lake Orion homeowner and HGTV star Nicole Curtis, who has been vocal about what she envisions for Lake Orion, spoke during public comment to support Lamb’s request. Curtis said it doesn’t really take a lot to have someone on the village payroll make a few phone calls for something that would likely be a big benefit to the downtown.
“As someone that runs a few businesses, it doesn’t take much to call a company and say ‘Give us an idea.’ As for parking downtown, this has been a huge, huge topic on everything from planning commission to this council that you keep saying you need more parking because you need to bring other people in. Speaking as someone who has paid a lot of parking tickets in her lifetime and a partner who doesn’t know how to pay a meter, we pay a lot,” Curtis said. “The City of Royal Oak actually just came out with a study to show how much revenue they brought in. Obviously with bringing in something like parking meters, I do believe you can make an exception. You can hand out senior passes, disabled placards don’t pay for parking meters, things like that. So, I think this would be a help because you guys, most of council, has been for additional parking. The DDA keeps screaming we need more parking. Let’s just actually see it and I think it is a good idea. These extra lots are not being utilized.”
After public comment, the council voted 5-2 in favor of the request with Van Portfliet and Cyrowski casting the two nay votes.
Along the same lines as parking, the council also approved the renewal of the passport parking citation management system agreement which has been in place for several years now and has been utilized by the LOPD to issue parking tickets and process fines, payment and collection.
According to village Manager Darwin McClary, the village does not incur any cost from renewing the system aside from the initial investment.
“The infrastructure on the system cost $1. Each phone was $1. They’re about $1,000 phones so when we signed up for this program they gave them to us for $1,” Narsh said. “How it works is if it’s a $30 ticket they get X and the rest comes to us so we don’t actually have to pay but it’s monitored that way.”
The village does not currently have parking agents but McClary did say that police Chief Harold Rossman has been “working on that” but that it’s a struggle even having police officers right now.
The council voted 6-0 to renew the passport parking system contract.Rutt was excused from the end of the meeting.