Bloomington Mayor John Hamilton vetoed an ordinance on Nov. 10 regarding the creation of a parking committee.
Council member Steve Volan wrote the legislation for the committee and presented it at the council’s Oct. 26 meeting. His proposal meant adding another entity to the city’s current list of 37 boards, commissions and committees.
While a traffic committee already exists, Volan argued the traffic committee’s focus was on moving vehicles effectively throughout the city, rather than issues related to parking.
“The storage of vehicles is very different than their movement,” Volan said.
Volan added that the parking commission could help businesses manage their parking effectively, offer recommendations to the council regarding parking issues in addition to work on mitigating unnecessary traffic in congested areas, among various responsibilities.
The council voted 7-0 to approve the parking commission. One member abstained from the vote.
In the veto message to the council, Hamilton said he feared the drain on current resources and staff would be too much to justify adding another committee.
“While adding one more commission may not itself seem a significant drain on staff resources, collectively the total number of hours committed to staffing these groups is very substantial,” Hamilton wrote in the veto letter.
Hamilton said he was worried with the amount of work 38 boards, commissions and committees would entail compared to the currently 37 groups. He also wrote that he realized the council had enough votes approving the creation of the parking commission that it could overturn the veto.
He encouraged the council to consider other options or commissions that the parking committee could be added to other preexisting groups. This included ideas such as replacing the Traffic and Bicycle/Pedestrian commissions with a new commission that would add parking as a topic of review.
The council could also go into the process of reviewing all of the already-existing boards, commissions and committees to ensure staff time was being used efficiently.
Lyndsay Jones
