City manager cautions that staff will not have available the comprehensive data it is collecting in time for Aug. 3 agenda item
With business owners and residents having directed more and more complaints to the Sarasota city commissioners about the board’s May decision to implement longer paid-parking hours in downtown Sarasota, Commissioner Liz Alpert suggested more than two weeks ago that she and her colleagues might want to consider reverting to the former hours and raising the rates instead.
Her comment came during the period set aside for commissioners’ and senior staff members’ remarks at the end of other business items during their July 6 board meeting.
Alpert did point out that it appeared to her that “an awful lot of people … were not aware that we were charging for parking downtown already,” and that many individuals also did not know that the paid-parking spots are only on two streets.
Perhaps an educational initiative undertaken by staff about “all of the free parking that is in our downtown” would be appropriate, Alpert further suggested.
Commissioner Kyle Battie responded with a desire to “find some sort of way to funnel, you know, people into our garages, to make sure that they’re getting utilized because they’re not at full capacity.”
Mayor Debbie Trice proposed the idea of more signage directing drivers to free parking sites. Since the city has erected signs with a blue “P” and the city logo for paid parking sites, she said, perhaps green signs could feature arrows pointing to free areas.
Commissioner Jen Ahearn-Koch noted that she had received “a lot of emails and had meetings and conversations with folks experiencing all kinds of angst” about the longer hours and paid parking part of the day on Sundays, when parking used to be free.
Nonetheless, Ahearn-Koch added that, since the Parking Division is supposed to cover its own expenses out of revenue it receives, she did not want to see the city having to continue to provide subsidies for that division, as it has in the past.
Mayor Trice proposed a workshop that would include a discussion of parking issues, “so we can bat around ideas,” instead of scheduling a formal agenda item for an upcoming meeting.
As a result of that discussion, an Aug. 31 workshop was set for the commissioners to focus on parking issues.
Then, on July 17, City Manager Karie Friling emailed the commissioners to announce that staff also would host an open house at 5:30 p.m. on Aug. 24 in the Commission Chambers within City Hall, for local business representatives and the general public “to discuss the City’s current parking program, recent changes made, and other possible future options to support our local businesses.”
Friling added, “This [event] will be posted on our website, and staff will be reaching out to our various businesses to ensure they are aware of the meeting. The results and input of this open house will then be shared at the Commission’s workshop.”
Yet, on July 20, both Alpert and Ahearn-Koch reprised their paid-parking concerns during the board remarks portion of their regular meeting that day.
Ahearn-Koch ended up asking City Auditor and Clerk Shayla Griggs to schedule a discussion item on the board’s Aug. 3 regular meeting agenda, even though Friling pointed out that she would not have ready for commission review the extensive data that staff has been collecting since the new hours went into effect.
Griggs also noted that the deadline had passed for items to be placed on the Aug. 3 agenda. Nonetheless, Griggs did acknowledge that city regulations allow a commissioner to add an item to an agenda after the deadline.
The letters and emails that city commissioners had received could serve as the back-up materials for the discussion, Ahearn-Koch noted.
As The Sarasota News Leader has reported, instead of charging for parking from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., the commissioners agreed during a March 23 discussion with Parking General Manager Broxton Harvey that the hours in the city’s metered spots would extend from 8 a.m. to midnight, seven days a week.
Fees would be charged 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in the city’s surface parking lots and parking garages, Harvey further noted, based on that late-March discussion.
Subsequently, on May 18, following pleas from leaders of various downtown Sarasota churches, the commissioners agreed to eliminate the implementation of fees for parking until 1 p.m. on Sundays.
The changes ended up going into effect on June 29.
‘They’re strangling us’
By count of the News Leader, eight people focused on the parking issue when they addressed the commissioners during the Citizens’ Input session at the start of the regular meeting on July 20.
Among those who addressed the board, Chip Beeman, owner of the Main Bar Sandwich Shop and Pastry Art, said the current parking policies are “strangling us,” referring to owners of businesses on the metered streets. “We are the golden goose of downtown; yet, we are being treated without consideration.”
He added, “I’ve been forced to downsize my staff from 18 employees to 15 employees.”
Moreover, Beeman pointed out, the new policy is “actively driving our downtown customers straight to the arms of places like UTC, making it very difficult [for businesses], even high-end steakhouses …”
He was referring to the Mall at University Town Center, which is located just south of University Parkway, and its associated shops along Cattlemen Road.
Katherine Hermes, a city resident who owns SRQ Med Spa, which stands at 1473 Main St., told the commissioners, “I came to Sarasota about five years ago.” In her business, she explained, she takes care of clients with a variety of health issues, some of whom use walkers. “They want to park right out front. … I need that access right in front of my store to take care of sick people,” Hermes emphasized.
Before the hours changed, she continued, she had about 10 to 15 patrons who came to her store routinely between 9 and 10 a.m. “to get a shot, a treatment …”
Hermes added, “I was forever coaching people on their free 10 minutes, because [a city meter maid] would wait until 10 o’clock and come right after my clients. I watched this.”
With the new parking hours, Hermes stressed, “My business is gone; I don’t have those clients anymore.”
Darci Jacob, owner of a Main Street women’s clothing shop and a member of the Sarasota Downtown Merchants Association — which brands itself online as Destination Downtown Sarasota — pointed out, “Locals who keep us alive in the summer are boycotting downtown. Our season was mediocre … and the summer is worse.”
She added that she knows of one store on Palm Avenue and one on Pineapple Avenue that are closing. Moreover, Jacob said, a store owner on Main Street had to take another job “to supplement his income.”
With the longer paid hours that have been implemented, she contended, the commissioners will have to keep subsidizing the Parking Division, because “No one will come [downtown].”
Nick Di Ielsi, manager of Café Amici, which has been in business for more than 27 years — one of the longest tenured restaurants in downtown, he noted — reported losing customers, as well, because of the extension of the paid parking period until midnight, when it used to end at 8 p.m. Some have told him they no longer will come downtown, he told the commissioners; they would prefer going to the Mall at University Town Center (UTC) or Lakewood Ranch, “where there is free parking.”
He, too, stressed that empty spots generate no parking revenue.
Di Ielsi did indicate that, as of that day, the restaurant would cover the parking charge up to three hours for its customers. “We’ll take the hit, as much as you’re hitting us right now,” he told the commissioners.
Chris Voelker, owner of State Street Eating House + Cocktails, thanked the commissioners for agreeing to the Aug. 24 open house for business representatives and the Aug. 31 workshop.
“This isn’t simply a debate about parking management; it’s a discussion about the future health and competitiveness of downtown Sarasota,” she said. “Downtown no longer exists as a vacuum,” Voelker pointed out. “We now compete with vibrant shopping districts throughout our region,” where parking is free, she continued. “Parking no longer is just a transportation issue; it’s an economic and human issue.”
“Many businesses, Voelker added, “are still recovering from the three hurricanes [in 2024] and slower seasonal traffic. They need policies that encourage customers to visit, not create additional barriers.”
She urged the commissioners to evaluate the parking program “through the lens of economic vitality.”
“If the evidence shows that the current program is discouraging visitors while the review is underway,” she continued, the board should re-implement the previous parking hours “until a final plan can actually be developed.”
Brian Mattison, who operates Mattison’s City Grille at the intersection of Main Street and Lemon Avenue, explained that he talks daily with his customers. “We have lost a tremendous amount of business over the last few weeks …”
Moreover, he added, increased parking enforcement — which was touted as a means of ensuring that spaces are available “and solve our parking problem” — has “scared people away …”
An insistence on an Aug. 3 discussion
During the commissioners’ remarks after conclusion of the other business items on the July 20 agenda, Commissioner Alpert once more was the first of the board members to raise the parking issue. She suggested — as Voelker of the State Street restaurant had — that the board roll back the paid hours to the previous schedule, “until we resolve how we’re going to handle this.”
“My only concern about rolling it back,” City Manager Friling pointed out, “is that we have just replaced all the signs …”
Further, Friling explained that her goal for the Aug. 31 workshop is to have “real data and factual information” to share with the board members. “We wanted to really be able to show you what’s happening on the ground in the first 30 days” of the new regulations being in effect.
Friling suggested that a number of factors might be related to the drop in patronage of downtown businesses and restaurants, other than the parking changes. “You know, it’s the light season,” she said, and “it was really hot.”
Nonetheless, she acknowledged, “I don’s set policy; you guys do.”
Ahearn-Koch again proposed the Aug. 3 discussion. That, she said, “would show our businesses downtown that we hear them. We know that summer’s tough, and we just made it even harder for them. … It’s like salt in the wound.”
Again, Friling pointed out that she would not have the data that she believes the board members would want to review before taking another step on the issue.
“I understand that,” Ahearn-Koch replied. “I just want to be responsive to our businesses, because they are really suffering, and I’m hearing it across the whole city,” including comments from residents, she added.
Twice during the approximately 15 minutes the board members spent on the topic, Vice Mayor Kathy Kelly Ohlrich admonished them with a raised voice.
“Folks,” she said, “we’re not here to discuss parking. This is commissioners’ comments!”
“Thank you,” City Auditor and Clerk Griggs told Ohlrich after the first reproach.
Yet, the discussion continued.
Ahearn-Koch maintained that she wanted the Aug. 3 agenda item, even when Mayor Trice reminded her that Friling would not have all of the data ready for review.
Trice also had emphasized that a number of complaints from the public contain “misinformation and misunderstanding.”
The Aug. 3 agenda item would provide an opportunity to talk about the issue, Ahearn-Koch responded.
That prompted Ohlrich’s second admonishment. “Could we move on?”