Private parking company axed, S. Tahoe to take over
Updated: April 20 11:47am.
By Kathryn Reed
The term “parking Nazis” for the people charged with patrolling the lot at the Village Center near Stateline will have to be retired now that South Lake Tahoe is severing its agreement with High Sierra Patrol.
Since the reorganization at the city, staff has been delving into why the parking garage at Heavenly Village is losing money and what various contracts say.
A kinder, gentler approach to parking at the Village Center near Stateline is coming. Photo/LTN
Truth is the garage is not losing money, city officials revealed April 19. It’s breaking even. It’s the enforcement across the street at the private Village Center that is taking a toll on keeping expenses in line. City officials are going to separate the two entities – as they admit should have been done at the time contracts were signed in 2002.
As with many contracts signed in that era, the one that says the city must provide enforcement at what was called Crescent V Center near Stateline essentially goes on for perpetuity. High Sierra also had contracts with the city starting before 2000 to patrol various locations in the city.
The odd thing about High Sierra Patrol being able to cite people is the 2000-01 El Dorado County Grand Jury report criticized the city for using the private company. At the time, the city said it would go back to using employees for parking enforcement. That policy did not last long.
Terry Hackett, who owns the Village Center, got the city to pay for the enforcement after convincing the powers that be that people using the Heavenly gondola and those shopping or eating at Heavenly Village would clutter his lot in an attempt to avoid paying to park across the street.
Hackett told Lake Tahoe News on April 20 that when he is in town next month he plans to discuss various aspects of the parking issue with city officials, including how long people can park, communication between enforcers and the public, and the implementation of things.
The nastiness between patrons and parking enforcers has gone on for nine years, with residents riled up at parking hearings, locals and visitors writing scathing letters to the media, and the city earning another black eye.
Much of the consternation had to deal with High Sierra telling people they could not cross the street if they were parked at the Village Center. Arguments erupted. People were upset. It was a public relations nightmare for the city.
With High Sierra out as of the end of May, it means the city will use mostly community resource officers to patrol the area. They will chalk tires, then issue citations if the person parks for more than two hours. People will not be harassed if they are seen walking across the street. It’s all about how long the car is parked, not where the people are.
The city’s 2010-11 contract with High Sierra had the company receiving $85,604 for parking patrol and $37,730 for snow removal enforcement.
The city will save that money by doing things in-house, which could mean the parking authority breaks even.
“The goal is not to issue more citations,” Nancy Kerry, spokeswoman for the city, told Lake Tahoe News after the City Council meeting. The city just wants to enforce the rules.
The tickets High Sierra writes cannot be tracked by location even though the contract for each area is unique. This is why the city cannot say how much money was brought in from a particular area.
A third party, JDS, collects the revenue.
“The city can discern based on revenue about two to three tickets a day are written at the Village Center,” Kerry said.
From each $50 parking ticket the city takes in about $42. The city doesn’t see a dime until the appeals process is complete.
One way the city hopes to generate income is by putting in parking meters. The first will go in this summer near Heavenly Village on Bellamy Court. The plan is it will be less expensive to park in those 20 spaces than in the garage.
More paid parking will be added near city beaches in the coming years.
Other items of note:
• The council is expected to decide June 7 on the bids it receives from potential ice rink operators. There was a walk through April 18 with perspective bidders. One was from within the city, two were groups from the community, and one person from Virginia.
• The two workshops were postponed because the meeting did not end until 5:30pm. The General Plan will be on the regular May 3 agenda, with City Manager Tony O’Rourke giving updates individually to councilmembers before then. If the capital improvement plan does not fit into the May 3 workshop, a special meeting will be called on May 10.
• In order to play fair, the appointments to the city’s fiscal sustainability committee won’t be made until May 3. This is because two applicants missed the deadline. This means the process is open until April 27.
• The state City Clerk Conference will be hosted by South Lake Tahoe at Embassy Suites April 26-29.
So this means now we can go down to Burger King and the price of a Whopper will be less than the cost to park… Unless, of course, we linger at one of the shops and snag one of those $50 parking tickets.
ANOTHER FINE MESS YOU HAVE GOTTEN US IN TO OLLIE.
$50 ticket is the reason I have not shopped at any of the businesses in that center. I won’t take the chance. I wonder how many others feel the same? Doesn’t say much for “shop locally”, does it?
Wonder if some kinda system like, pay for the 1st level, 2nd level is free after showing a receipt for something bought that day on premise, 2 top levels are free (have 4 levels?). Maybe everything will be as good as possible within reason under the current summer system planned.
I assume the paking lot is private property, owned by the shopping center. Why is SLT paying to remove snow and how can they impose a no parking regulation on this land?
If I were a business owner in this center, I would provide wet paper towels to my partrons to go out and remove the chalk marks from their cars so they could spend more time in my store.
HA! The owner of the property convinced the city to pay for enforcement on his private property…. and the city did it.
I am never shopping there again. Sports LTD is price gouged anyway.
Why do we continue to behave against our own best interest, folks? It is the city and the land owner that have this arrangment; not the shops there. Every dollar not spent in this center is spent off the hill and benefits others. At least some of the shops give locals a break AND employ locals who then hopefully spend those dollars locally. Factor in the cost of gas and it probably evens out.
Apparently no one in the Powers-That-Be category (either the City or the Owner) have done their homework elsewhere (they always use Consultants they think they can afford; you get what you pay for !).
Truckee uses a downtown parking system borrowed from Aspen, both of which do fine. There are other examples elsewhere.
For Tahoe, we can upgrade, as there are parking dispensers that easily print out “value” coupons on the reverse side (look at a McDonald’s receipt sometime).
How about parking receipts that deliver value for the customer and traffic for the businesses. Make them reasonably deadline-free to encourage their coupon use by visitors the NEXT time they visit. And in color, no less. . .
Perhaps with more value for those at the other end of town, less for the closer ones.
South Lake Tahoe should be so lucky as to have enough visitor traffic again, as to have a real parking deficiency.
San Francisco writes $ 60-70 million/year/parking violations, so even with the examples of Truckee and Aspen included, we should be able to make a marketing point with our parking here, a win/win/win.
Again, Tahoe should be so lucky.
Visitors are not put-off paying, as evidenced by the Marriott/Embassy examples of 25.00/day. They are, however, extremely perplexed at the ridiculous treatment that resulted in the P.R. nightmare mentioned above.
Next up: a much better transit situation, and better reasons to actually go to the other end of town – stay tuned. . .
For starters I’ve worked at Sports Ltd. at the Village Center for 15 of the past 19 years. The store employs almost 2 dozen people and has always offered a 10% locals discount on most items. If the robot thinks we price gouge, then please explain why the store is still here…thrivinbg in fact. Most of our customers come from large metro areas with access to numerous sports stores and don’t forget the internet. These people price compare and then spend money with us. Do you think they are all naive enough to support a price gouging store?? Perhaps the robot needs to re-boot its’ central processing unit which seems to be malfunctioning. Once again k9woods uses excellent logic in accessing the situation. Couple of other points:
1) The 2 hour time limit is arbitrary and just plain wrong. A complicated boot fit can take that long….what if they want to go grocery shopping or grab a meal or cup of coffee after that? One can easily spend 2+ hours in the art galleries and other shops at the center. There has to be a better way than imposing an arbitrary time limit. We’ve often had to tell people to go out and move their car to avoid a ticket. That’s just bad P.R. for our city and the center.
2) With gas prices virtually certain to continue their upward movement, wouldn’t it make more sense to intice visitors with a free parking incentive at the garage with a minimun purchace(s) at Heavenly Village shops/ Heavenly gondola? That would take the pressure off the Village Centers’ easy access ‘free’ parking. Or we can continue to shoot ourselves in the foot (and the pocketbook).
Tom – You make too much sense. Free parking = more people in your businesses. Market that rather than meters, patrols and time limits.
Hi Tom. Every time I go in there I am largely ignored. I dunno maybe I don’t reek of ‘tourist’. Ill ask someone a question, they call back to the repair shop, tell me someone will meet me. And I stand there like an idiot for 5 minutes.
Your business works because of tourists who don’t know it is over priced.
Check your disc golf prices. Way over priced. I get the same discs for less, including shipping, on the internet.
“Do you think they are all naive enough to support a price gouging store??”
Yes. Example: Every restaurant in town.
Just a couple of comments, first I was in Sports LTD today and the service was fine. The prices are a little high, but not outrageous and they do give locals a break. Regarding the parking remember the property is owned by Terry Hackett, it’s all private property and the stores lease from Hackett. The problem has never been the City, it’s Hackett that set the parking time and demands enforcement. This is not done until we hear from Mr. Hackett, it is his property!
Yes robot, you can get things cheaper on line so long as you’re willing to wait for them. That still doesn’t explain why so many people choose to spend money with us.Tourists don’t know how to price compare? Considering that most of our visitor base comes from tech saavy No. Cal, that just doesn’t make sense.I apologize if you have not gotten prompt service. Not knowing the circumstances, I cannot offer a remedy. Restaurants have seen their food costs go up along with the fuel prices. Some restaurants also cater to a more up scale patron….there’s always Taco Bell for the budget minded. Remeber that on line shopping only sends more $$ off the hill. Hopefully it goes to someone who will come up here and spend some of it…but that’s a long shot.
p.s. Thanks Tahoan 25
tahoeadvocate: You ask why the city pays to clear the parking lot of the old Crescent V shopping center? I don’t know for sure, but I’m sure it dates back to their STEALING that shopping center from the Van Sickles by “emminent domain” in order to “sell” it to another private corporation. It was “for the greater good” that they took one person’s private property and gave it to another, who rehabilitated the property a little, and now makes a tidy profit. More dirty business from the city of SLT.
I’m all for shopping locally, when it makes sense. I shop at Pet Supermarket all the time because the kids who work there are ON it! Excellent service there, prices average, not bad. The service makes it worth it.
Which is why I, like the Robot, won’t shop at LTD. Tom may be a fine employee, but he’s not there all the time. I’ve had bad service there enough times that I now refuse to go back.
I have always had good service at Sports LTD.
Probably because they recognize you Carl! I can walk through the store and be totally ignored unless I go to the register.
Oh, tourists are a captive audiance. They know they are paying too much, but need it now and so pay the price and learn not to forget anything the next time they travel!!
Have always been treated well at Sports LTD, custom boot fittings cannot be found online. Was even told to buy skis ( no custom fitting) online to save money. But for repairs and advise–great service.
Wow. So I am not the only one. I desperately want to shop local, and will/do pay more. But won’t put up with the terrible customer service.
It could be worse. Have you ever been to Telluride? If you don’t smell like money, forget it. I’ll even tip big on the first beer, in a bar that is not busy, and have to beg them for another round.
How a discussion on parking and the City turned into a discussion on Sports Ltd. is interesting? But anyway, the City shouldn’t be paying to patrol a parking lot on behalf of a private owner!! How it got sucked into that? I mean I’d call it very dumb, but I think we’ve all just become so numb to all the dumb things the City does?!
And Sports Ltd does have the reputation of being over priced. I was standing right there three days ago when a hotel employee was telling a tourist not to go there because it’s overpriced. If it’s thriving in spite of that rep., good for it! Seriously! I know of instances where Sports Ltd. has been supportive of the community and various community causes!
I worked in the shopping center for 2 years and must say that the parking situation was a nightmare. Even with a hangtag to park there, coworkers and I would often receive citations. After explaining to the parking patrol that you worked in the center, showed them your hangtag there was “nothing they could do.” This meant you then had to repeal the ticket by writing a letter to someplace in Santa Ana. For a while there wasn’t even a number to call for this place in Santa Ana that was deciding your ticket fate.
This isn’t to say there shouldn’t be some type of parking enforcement in the lot but it should be consistent. For the people who work in the center tickets are often given in mistake but the burden is on the receiving end when you have to do the work to repeal the ticket and often times still pay the ticket. The parking enforcement isn’t always on site enforcing and giving out tickets. On busy days their presence is known on slower days they don’t always keep track of the 2 hour limit–it’s just not consistent.
Many of our customers would spend more than 2 hours shopping in the center, drinking coffee and then pick up groceries having never left the center and would get a ticket. After explaining to the parking enforcement the situation they would still have to go through the repeal process.
It was no secret amongst the people working in the center–we couldn’t stand dealing with the parking enforcement in the shopping center. Hopefully a better and more consistent method is put in place for the shopping center.
A question for Conservation Robot: if you “don’t reek of being a tourist” or “smell like money”, what do you smell like (?). . .Perhaps that’s part of the service problem. Just joking !
I don’t think that Sports LTD folks would even be bothered by that, if you were polite in asking them something; they’re mostly up-to-date on everything they sell – something that cannot be said elsewhere. Unless you remember the Outdoorsman. . .
That’s my experience with them all. . .
As to the “brick & mortar” vs. Internet purchase, the price of shipping (going up with gas), the time to go over the hill, or wait time, should be offset by the convenience, the 10% local, or waiting ’til that season is over, as manufacturers don’t want to take back inventory, due to next year’s fashions.
Mark is to be commended for having the selection that he does, as it results in those “tourists” finding something they like, or “locals” getting deals off- season, at significant reductions.
My point earlier is that visitors anywhere don’t mind paying for parking, as they are used to it wherever they come from. . . they just like some ‘lovin’ with that screwin’.
Charging for parking is a legitimate revenue stream, and will not dissuade people from coming here, as long as the service and amenities are ‘up-to-par’ (or above. . .way above, better than now)
Agreed Satori.
Sports LTD has always treated me right, in fact I was in there on Saturday for some bike supplies. Tom, Jay and the boys have always taken care of me and my family.
As for fee parking as a revenue source……yes it is a great source of revenue if managed well and disrtibuted back into the program and streets. Truckee has had success through the fee parking.
Looks like a big side-track to me. Get back to the issue of charging people to park in the garage, don’t be so short sighted and chase customers away. Make the village supplement at bare minimum a few hours of free parking, so the customer will at least take a look in the shops.