REALITY BURSTS CITY'S, RAMIRO'S PARKING HIKE BUBBLE

By Juan Montoya
These are the assumptions upon which the City of Brownsville Planning Director Ramiro Gonzalez and the city commissioners were basing their support for a tripling of the parking meter fee from 25 cents per hour to 75 cents:
"If we raise the hourly parking meter fee to 75 cents, it will make shoppers shop faster so that there will be a quicker turnover and when those shoppers leave, others can take their place and there will be an increase of parking space and more revenues for the city."
And, the scenario goes, cities like New York, San Antonio, Houston, Laredo and others already have higher parking rates than Brownsville, which has not raised them since 1976. With the additional money raised by the higher fees and fines, Gonzales intimated that a committee might be formed to decide where the money should go, including a portion to downtown development and restoration.
Alas, these assumptions were quickly put to rest by the testimony of some 20 people who do business downtown, own, or manage properties there.

It is interesting to note at the outset that the man who placed the issue for a town hall meeting – Da Mayor Tony Martinez – was not present at the meeting although he was quoted in the local daily's story as if he had been there. Only commissioners John Villareal and Jessica Tetreau-Kalifa showed up, and that was 40 minutes into the meeting.
Villarreal – in his usual dismissive fashion – said that no one showed up at the last city commission meeting where the commissioners passed it 6-1 with commissioner Ricardo Longoria being the only negative vote. In fact, it was Longoria's disagreement with the consent item that pushed Martinez to call for a town hall meeting to hear the public's opinion.
Everyone present agreed  that there was a problem with parking downtown, but not with the city's heavy-handed approach of tripling parking meter fees and increasing the fines.  
Don't insult our intelligence," Dr. Gustavo Stern, who owns and rents apartments downtown told Gonzalez. "You're like a doctor who has performed the right diagnosis but the doctor is going to kill the patient."
Stern said that because of the lack of parking, security and attractions, renting apartments downtown was difficult and forced landlords to lower their rents to a minimum.
"People need to live downtown, but we need security and parking," Stern told Gonzalez.
Diana Cisneros Barrientes, whose family has run the Oyster Bar Restaurant for more than 50 years, said that her family's business depended on the cross-border trade of people from Matamoros who already paid some $6.50 to cross and return to the international bridge.
"You're asking them to pay an additional 75 cents on top of that," she said, adding that she had struggled to get the city to put a handicapped parking space in front of her restaurant.
Local blogger Jim Barton echoed her statement in his presentation, he said that the higher parking costs on restaurant patrons would result in a de facto 15 percent surcharge on the restaurant prices.
"We have a very fragile downtown," he said, adding that there had been many new clubs that had failed recently.
Roberto Uresti minced no words and accused Gonzales and the city commissioners of being insensitive to the needs of the citizens and that this latest proposals only mirrored that fact.
"All your city employees get free parking," he said. "Please use your eyes and tell the mayor to wake up."
Abraham Galonsky, whose family owns a number of large properties downtown, said that the downtown area could not be compared to the inner cities of New York, Houston, or San Antonio.
"Nearly 60 to 70 percent of the parking spaces are taken up by employees of the stores downtown," he said. "The businesses here are second-hand stores, and cheap stuff is all that you find there."
His views were buttressed by those of Roberto Zamora, a merchant who employs 20 people downtown.
"These workers earn minimum wage," he said. "That's all we can afford to pay them. To them, paying $60 a month for parking is a lot. This in not New York City."
He said that in those urban areas people willingly pay the higher parking fees because there is entertainment and recreational things to do there.
"What are you, really?" he asked. "Are there monuments here?  Is there a River Walk. Some people come here on a weekend and they say go ahead and raise the parking fees. You don't have to be here every day like we do. Think about how to attract more business here instead of trying to raise the parking fees for those already here."
The ordinance seems to have been taken from some northern city and then superimposed on Brownsville, many said. For example, in the original draft it said that Mexican consulate personnel would be exempt from paying parking fees or fines.
That left Gerardo Danache, a Mexican attorney and vice-president for international affairs with the Mexican version of the Chamber of Commerce for Matamoros and Tamaulipas, wondering whether the city commissioners had forgotten that they had officially recognized the consul for Guatemala at a previous commission meeting.
"I was assured that the language would be changed to include other consulates besides the one from Mexico who have a presence at the border," he said.
The gist of the meeting was that although everyone present was in agreement with the city planner and city commission in that a parking problem existed, they thought a better solution was to establish a reasonable parking scheme for the employees of the downtown businesses so that parking space would be available to those shoppers who drove downtown.
The city commission will consider the proposals in their Feb. 4 meeting.