Augusta committee postpones parking meter decision

Augusta Commission committee members sparred over Mayor Hardie Davis’ power and rejected his call again Tuesday to approve a parking meter program that members have not had an opportunity to discuss.

Just before the holidays, city engineering personnel handed out a revised parking management ordinance and operations plan drafted by parking consultant SP Plus, the Engineering Department and city lawyers. Commissioners did not approve the plan then or earlier and cited similar questions when versions of the plan reappeared before them Tuesday.

Engineering Director Hameed Malik again outlined the plan’s basics Tuesday: Motorists would pay $1.50 per hour for up to two hours on Broad Street from Fifth to 12th streets and up to four hours on Fifth through 12th. Residents could buy an annual permit for $50, while downtown employees would pay $25 per month to park on certain streets.

Mayor Pro Tem Sean Frantom questioned several aspects of the plan, including why it does not designate that proceeds must go back into downtown improvements. The ordinance says only that they will be “used for economic revitalization in Augusta” at the commission’s direction.

Davis noted how quickly North Augusta has implemented and tweaked its parking meter program in Riverside Village, home to the GreenJackets stadium.

“I hear you, mayor, but there’s a lot more things we have to work out than North Augusta,” Frantom said. “We really need 60 pay stations?”

Augusta’s proposal might be a “Mustang” when it only needs a Honda, he said.

“Let’s do it right the first time instead of just forcing it down everybody’s throat,” he said.

Davis said he “disagreed” with Frantom’s statements.

“I will emphatically say that Hardie Davis doesn’t lose,” he said.

Commissioner Ben Hasan said that once again, commissioners were being asked “to make a decision right there” after being handed documents.

Hasan asked whether the sheriff’s office was contacted about being mentioned in the plan and whether a “quasi-judicial authority” expected to hear parking ticket appeals would cost additional funds. He asked how it would impact the program’s success if Augusta pulls up the meters when it begins an overhaul of Broad Street in two years.

The program needs a “robust conversation” it has not had, he said.

After a brief attempt to schedule the workshop prior to next week’s regular meeting, commissioners agreed on 11 a.m. Jan. 27.

On other matters, commissioners failed to pass new regulations on sidewalk cafes downtown after Commissioner John Clarke said he objected to the addition of a $25 permit fee, and they put off discussion of the city stormwater utility fee until Malik presents a report in June.

Clarke had asked to review the program after recent flooding and his examination of what has been done with more than $90 million in funds designated for stormwater.

Many residents “don’t feel like they’re getting a bang for their buck,” Clarke said, particularly when they wake up to a neighbor’s raw sewage from another overflow during heavy rain.

Clarke said the 55 employees being paid from the fund average about $72,000 each, while the city is paying contractors $2,550 to mow a linear mile, work that “can be done a lot cheaper.”

Commissioner Sammie Sias, a champion of the fee, gave an example of how the funds were used to move a large corrugated drain pipe improperly installed in a resident’s backyard.

“This man had been sitting on a 32-inch pipe that his kids could walk in,” he said. “That is what we designed in this system in years past.”

Frantom said he’d seen work done at Lake Olmstead and in National Hills funded by the fee, which is $6.40 per month for small households.

In other business, Hasan asked to discuss changing how the commission appoints an administrator, saying commissioners had been talking about it for some time.

Local laws say the commission picks an administrator from among finalists selected by the mayor, and Augusta hasn’t had a permanent administrator since Janice Allen Jackson’s abrupt resignation in April.

“My attempt is to put the commission more involved in this process,” Hasan said. “That’s what’s best for us.”

Davis, who would lose his role in the shift, said any prior discussion of the change was “probably not a complete conversation” and involved a process that “preceded me.”

“This argument is really a red herring,” he continued. The process “worked for previous mayors — (Bob) Young, (Deke) Copenhaver,” and “is a time-honored process.”

“There will be those that come behind me. I don’t want to see us do anything to diminish the role,” the mayor said.

Davis said that just after he was first elected, he asked to be involved in the selection of Augusta’s last administrator, but was turned down. The commission rejected Copenhaver’s recommendation.

“You rejected him and we went with someone else and that’s how we ended up with (Jackson),” he said.

Hasan said “time-honored tradition doesn’t matter” to Davis, citing his surprise announcement just after taking office in 2015 that he intended to increase the mayor’s power.

“With all due respect,” Davis said. “this is what the current law is and I suggest we follow it.”

Commissioners decided to place initiating a search for a new administrator on an upcoming committee agenda.