The online parking survey ended at 9 p.m., Friday, Nov. 17.
The city held the last of the city’s parking town hall meetings on Nov. 14. Many if not most of the seats filling the City Council Chambers on Tuesday, Nov. 14 were city staff and members of the Ad Hoc Parking Committee. This meeting also included participants on Zoom.
The next meeting of the city’s Ad Hoc Parking Committee will be held at 5:30 p.m., Nov. 29, in the Council Chambers.
Public perceives decision as already made
Some members of the public were convinced that the decision to have paid parking on Main Street has already been made. Parking consultant Julie Dixon argued that was not the case during the meeting. It was Dixon who recommended having the public pay for parking on Main Street.
“I have heard of some concerns that people think that paid parking on Main street is imminent when it is not,” wrote District Two Council Member/Mayor Tom Moore in a Nov. 16 email.
The Sun has seen similar comments on social media and a staff member has heard members of the public on Main Street say the decision has been made.
Main Street business owner David Marcus, an opponent of paid parking on Main, said in a Nov. 15 email that the Parking Committee would vote to change Seal Beach forever. He called it a political issue, nothing more.
“Never once did I hear the word revenue to be brought into the city by instituting paid parking,” Marcus wrote.
Darin Detwiler wanted to know the cost of doing nothing.
According to Mayor Moore, the Parking Committee will make recommendations to the City Council in December or January and the council will make its decision after that.
“It is still possible that there will not be paid parking on Main street if the council votes to not proceed with that. The decision is ultimately up to the City Council,” Moore said.
Moore didn’t mention it, but any changes to parking in the Coastal Zone would have to be approved by the California Coastal Commission.
In Seal Beach, the Coastal Zone begins at the edge of the Pacific and stops at Westminster Avenue.
Earlier this year, Moore proposed a two-year moratorium on paid parking. The proposal failed. He then proposed the creation of the parking committee. At the time, District Four Council Member Schelly Sustarsic expressed concern about the data the parking consultant had gathered. District One Council Member Joe Kalmick and District Five Councilman Nathan Steele have expressed support for paid parking in the Main Street area.
District Three Councilman Lisa Landau has not declared a position on the issue.
“My number one takeaway from the parking town hall was recognizing that we are fortunate to live in a community that cares so much about the quality of life in Seal Beach. I’m confident, given what I’ve seen so far, that the members of the Parking Ad Hoc Committee are listening to the public and will make recommendations that will benefit both residents and visitors,” wrote District Three Councilwoman Lisa Landau.
“Though I was disappointed in the turnout from Chamber members, I felt that our parking consultant Julie Dixon and Chief Henderson and his staff were able to answer many questions and concerns proposed by business owners. Hopefully those business owners that were able to attend will be able to bring the information learned back to their fellow Main Street business owners,” wrote District One Council Member Joe Kalmick.
Space doesn’t allow quoting everything everyone said, but the following is an overview of the meeting.
The town hall
Seal Beach Police Chief Michael Henderson opened the meeting. “So for approximately the last seven, eight years, we’ve gone through an evolution in our parking program in Seal Beach,” he said.
Henderson said the parking program is now all digital.
“And what we’ve discovered is that we’re reaching some capacity limits with our available parking and it necessitates review of the program and decisions about whether or not we want to change our policies with parking to allow certain things and maybe not allow other things,” Henderson said.
He introduced parking consultant Dixon to the audience. She described herself as a parking geek.
She said parking should be convenient and accessible for people. “That parking space should be available to them [for] short term pickup and deliveries. Who would have thought Postmates or Uber Eats those things would have existed? But the fact is we need for those businesses to be able to access our restaurants to pick up the food so they can bring it to us for those of us that don’t want to leave our living rooms,” Dixon said.
According to Dixon, there is a difference between reality and perception.
“The reality is there’s just not a place to park where you want to park. And I can tell you that just over this last several months if I go into Main Street, usually the simplest place for me to find a parking space is in the off street, Main Street lots because what we have happening right now, it’s actually backwards,” Dixon said.
“We’ve got people circling Main Street because they want to park for free rather than hopping into one of the main street lots where there’s typically ample parking as well,” Dixon said.
“And I will say that the industry standard is about people typically will walk between two to three blocks. And I think you can all agree Seal Beach is a very walkable community,” Dixon said.
Dixon said that study after study had “demonstrated when you start to manage parking on street you actually see an increase in sales tax revenue, meaning that you can actually turn the parking spaces over more frequently.”
“We’ve also been talking with the ad hoc committee about maybe some residential benefits that could come along potentially with the program as well. And that’s something that’s been very popular in other—I’ll call it tourist popular communities—is to ensure that residents have that access and can also visit the businesses and restaurants,” Dixon said.
“The program is forecasted that if the rates were at about $1 an hour to start, which we would anticipate you’d probably be a little bit higher than that, that the program would net about $300,000 in year one, and then likely increase after that because that’s after the cost of the equipment,” Dixon said.
“Old Pasadena was actually the first community to implement a parking benefits district. And it’s where the monies that are generated basically after the cost of the program are reinvested in that district,” Dixon said.
“The number one goal for any parking program is sustainability. If we break even we’re in a winning situation because the reality is we’re trying to do is achieve turnover,” Dixon said.
“There are several communities that actually implement paid parking management specifically for the turnover. And these are programs that are actually operating at a loss, recognizing that they’re making that investment,” Dixon said.
She said those were business decisions that cities make on a case by case basis.
Dixon also said there was a cost to the existing parking program.
“Everybody pays for it regardless of if you use it or not,” Dixon said.
One member of the audience raised concerns about employee parking and argued that parking meters are ugly.
“You might have noticed in the main street parking lots in February, we actually eliminated all of the single space meters and have gone down to one pay station in the main street lots,” Dixon said.
Later, she addressed the concern about parking meetings being unpleasant to look at. Dixon said she was talking about pay stations rather than individual meters at parking spaces.
As for employee parking, Dixon said they had been looking for possible locations for employee parking. She also said there were opportunities for carpooling and bus passes for employees.
Consultant compensation issue
Dixon was asked how much she was paid.
“It’s about $5,000 a month,” she said, apparently speaking off the top of her head. She also said she didn’t have the exact number but offered to get it for the person who asked.
The Sun asked Dixon for conformation of that figure and clarification for some of her comments in a Nov. 16 email. In a Nov. 20 email, Seal Beach Police Capt. Nick Nicholas provided some additional information on Dixon. “Regarding the fees for the City Parking Consultant, it is important to reinforce that the City of Seal Beach did not have a designated parking manager. The base salary for most Parking Manager positions throughout Southern California starts at a base of approximately $85,000 (not including benefits),” Nicholas wrote.
“The monthly rate for the contract for Dixon Resources has been at $3750 for the last 2 years and was recently authorized to increase to a monthly rate to $6600 in support of the current parking initiatives,” Nicholas wrote.
“At the onset, the parking program overhaul was a challenging and over the first two years, DIXON’s annual fees were $99,000, commensurate with a typical City Parking Manager, however, the support provided generated not only major system improvements but provided substantial cost savings with the elimination of standing vendor agreements that were costing the City’s project monies. Over the next 2 years, DIXON provided support services on a time and materials basis (approx. $82,000) and the City’s parking revenues continued to increase. Beginning in Fiscal Year 2021, the City contracted with DIXON a flat monthly fee (annual total $45,000) to support and maintain the City’s parking program which continues to perform beyond any pre-DIXON support services,” Nicholas wrote.
According to Dixon, she had been working for Seal Beach since 2018.
Other issues
Dixon was also asked about the two-hour time limit. She called the two-hour time limit fairly standard. However, one woman argued that the time limit was harmful.
“I do think that when we talk about getting back to your point about short term versus long term parking, that’s one of the things that we talked about the prioritization of being Street and the opportunity number one to get our employees or business owners off Main Street so that you have more parking availability,” Dixon said.
Asked how the city would use the money, Dixon said: “I do think that that’s something that the ad hoc committee can make recommendations to Council for consideration. It could be a parking benefits district.”
A woman who identified herself as Allison Duffy Larson said putting in parking meters would drive more people into neighborhood streets.
Dixon conceded there would be impacts. “But that’s another reason why we have the data that we have so that we can actually manage and monitor and also potentially make policy changes for those types of things,” Dixon said.
One man said the public should consider parking meters.
“But the money that generates at $15 a day at the parking lot is still less than probably, I’m guessing, 80% of the beach cities in the state of California,” he said.
Dixon was asked how paid parking would work.
“One of the options is to walk to a pay station, but you also can leverage a mobile app and you can initiate your parking session and you also can text to pay,” Dixon said.
“But you actually have all three of those opportunities to initiate your parking session,” Dixon said.
Turning back to the subject of short parking stays, Dixon said there was an opportunity subject to the approval of the Parking Committee and the City Council. “We call it the 20 Minute Free button, but you could initiate that from your phone,” she said.
“You don’t ever have to go back to your car unless you’re parked in a time limit zone and you have to move it before the time limit is enforced,” Dixon said.
David Marcus, owner of Baby Boomers, said he was in disagreement with paid parking.
“My mother doesn’t have a cell phone. And customers who come to my business, which is a children’s store, a lot of elderly, they’re going to come and they’re not going to come back. You know people will come to me they come to shop, to stroll. They’re not going to come back, this is just my opinion. They’re not going to come back,” Marcus said.
“So I just want to reinforce the fact that we’ve actually had this technology installed in Seal Beach not only to beach lots on basically for several years now, but also in our main street parking lots,” Dixon said.
One woman said people are rude nowadays and would throw trash out of their cars into residential areas.
“I will just add a caveat to that, that I think it already happens today. So I just really want to acknowledge for some of those residents that are nodding their heads. Yeah, but I just want to read reinforce the fact that I think that that’s a epidemic that we have, honestly all throughout Southern California as well. And I think that regardless of paid parking management or not,” Dixon said.
Darin Detwiler said his grad students do a lot of case studies. “I require them to discuss the methodologies, the tools they use for analysis, but in their recommendations, they must include the option of doing nothing, including a cost of doing nothing,” Detwiler said.
He wanted to know if that information would be available at the Nov. 29 meeting of the Ad Hoc Parking Committee.
