South Tahoe offers deals at parking garage to entice drivers

By Kathryn Reed

The city-owned parking garage at Heavenly Village has a series of specials going on. One expires in November and the other is a winter special.

Lake Tahoe News just learned about them at a recent parking meeting — and had to ask the city to send the information even though the city contracts with a company to run the garage that has a public information officer on staff.

The South Lake Tahoe parking garage loses close to $60,000 a year. The City Council at the time this redevelopment area was built agreed to own the garage. It has several years left to pay back millions of dollars in bond debt.

The South Tahoe Joint Powers Parking Authority (STJPPA) oversees the garage near Stateline. The board that runs the STJPPA is really the City Council, just like the Redevelopment Agency board is the five City Council members. It is commonly referred to as the Parking Authority.

Standard Parking and High Sierra Patrol have contracts with the Parking Authority. The city in the 2010-11 budget is paying Standard Parking $193,000 to manage the garage. High Sierra Patrol this fiscal year is being paid $104,342 to manage on street parking and the Village Center eight hours a day, seven days a week.

According to Gene Palazzo, who heads the Redevelopment-Housing Department which includes parking, no general fund and no redevelopment money is being used for parking — just money from the Parking Authority.