What's Happening in Lafayette, CA…

Local businesses come to the Lafayette city council for help in freeing up parking spots for their customers.

Citing the tenacity and cleverness of people in search of a parking place, Council Member Mark Mitchell opened up the discussion of Ordinance 636, a move to regulate private parking facilities. The purpose of the ordinance is to ensure patrons of businesses around La Fiesta Square will be able to more easily find parking places by discouraging employee and BART parking.

A group of 16 businesses on La Fiesta Square came before council asking that they be allowed to install 225 parking meters, accepting of coins or credit cards, to discourage long-term parking. In addition, an enforcement option to ensure compliance was requested in the form of an invoice for those who park yet refuse to feed the meters.

The word ‘invoice’ was utilized because the meters would be on private property and a private company would be documenting violations, rather than the police. Therefore, the word ‘citation’ would not be appropriate. The public will need to be informed of the details of the new ordinance and the consequences of violating it. Educating the driving public will be easier with the help of a flyer printing service.

The new ordinance was passed unanimously, and on October 27 will receive a second reading and may then be adopted. It will not go into effect, however, until 30 days after its adoption.