Double-parking downtown

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• City doubles parking rates downtown
• City considers doubling downtown parking rates
• Downtown parking open house on Oct. 24
• Pondering parking-fee hikes downtown
• City council preview: Downtown association wants parking solution
• Downtown parking plan panned, praised

Downtown parking will be the subject of a lot of chatter this week.

One night after the Kamloops Central Business Improvement Association (KCBIA) hosts its open house on the subject, the Kamloops Voters Society will present a parking discussion forum on Thursday, Oct. 25.

Brad Harrison of the Kamloops Voters Society said the group was approached by a number of business owners and members of the public who wanted to have more say on changes proposed for parking in the downtown core.

Among the options on the table is a meter rate hike to $1 an hour on most downtown streets and up to $1.50 an hour on Victoria Street — with the extra cash going to fund new parking in the area and better management of existing stock.

Parking meters would also be replaced with credit-card friendly terminals and the 24-hour discount rate on parking tickets would rise to about $10.

The ideas were pitched to the city by the KCBIA and workshopped at city council earlier this summer.

Kamloops Voters Society member Chris Ortner said he recognizes the association put a lot of volunteer work into its plan, "but it's from the point of view of the downtown business association. No one stopped to ask the public or the seniors or the churches or the social agencies or anybody like that what they want to see."

The forum is a chance for those people to speak up, he said.

"This began with people asking the individual directors of the society when they were going to get to say their two bits' worth, and the fact is they might not have if someone hadn't organized something."

The forum will begin with a panel discussion including, among others, city CAO David Trawin, community safety and enforcement manager Jon Wilson, Peter Pietramala of the KCBIA, Movie Mart owner Denis Walsh and developer Casey Van Dongen.

After the panel offers some background on the issue, "then it's basically an open floor for people to either a) give suggestions or b) ask questions," Harrison said.

"There might be someone with some real good ideas out there that we're missing."

The session will run on Thursday, Oct. 25, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Desert Gardens, 540 Seymour St.

The KCBIA's parking open house takes place on Wednesday, Oct. 24, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., with a formal presentation at 6 p.m., at Caffe Motivo, 229 Victoria St.