CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – After weeks of discussion, which continued into Thursday night, the City Council voted to defer an ordinance to abolish the Parking Commission and move parking enforcement under the Police Department. The ordinance will be revisited after budget season, in August.

The sponsor of the ordinance, Councilman Joe Shakeenab, previously made his case for why the ordinance should be approved, which included the Parking Commission’s inability to enforce parking tickets in Clarksville.

According to previous reports, the Parking Fund has $800,000 in uncollected fees and fines. Shakeenab also previously talked about the debt associated with the city garage falling under the Parking Commission and why it should be a City Council problem to address.

Going into Thursday’s meeting, several council members, as well as downtown business owners, asked for the ordinance to be deferred for the conversation to continue.

| PREVIOUSLY: Parking fund has $800,000 in unpaid tickets, downtown business owners say make it free

‘There’s no one solution to fix this problem, it must be continually engaged’

On Thursday night, Shakeenab said based on his monthly engagement on the Parking Commission over the last three-plus years, he felt it was his duty to bring the issue forward.

“We need to move forward because the current parking configuration, especially with it being an enterprise, is not working and it hasn’t worked since the years I’ve been on the Parking Commission,” he said. “I have heard a lot of support about a needed change; some who have served on the Parking Commission. I’ve also heard some skepticism of not now.

“Every month on the Parking Commission, since I’ve been there, we’ve had business owners, some on the commission, some attend, and they address their issues and concerns. As a commission we work really hard to try to accommodate a lot of those concerns. But seemingly we continue to fall short on that endeavor.”

Shakeenab said at this point, he doesn’t believe any study is needed, because the Parking Commission has been studying the issues for years. “We had the Desmond study and paid a lot of money (for them) to come in. Matter of fact, we’ve had it twice now as a Parking Authority and as a commission,” he said. “There’s no one solution to fix this problem, it must be continually engaged.”

Amendment to ordinance introduced

Councilwoman Amber Marquis introduced an amendment to the ordinance, in regard to accounting and annual reporting. “What I put in here is how revenues should be utilized,” Marquis said. “I have reached out to Finance about this, and they can keep track of it, so it’s not an issue on their part to be able to keep all that in order.

“Then, taking all of that data onto the second section that I am adding is the annual parking system report that Finance will essentially present to the council. Because I believe we should be transparent on all funds. So, they would take that previous data and present it to the council during the May regular session (meeting). So, right before the budget (process).”

Councilwoman Stacey Streetman said with the information shared with the City Council leading up to the meeting, in addition to the amendment, there are a lot of questions that need to be clarified.

“I’ve already started having some conversations with people downtown, but I haven’t had near the amount of conversations I would like to have,” Streetman said.

City Council votes to defer ordinance, amendment

After some back-and-forth conversation of when to defer the ordinance and amendment to, the City Council voted 7-6 to postpone the proposals until August, after budget season. Voting in favor of the ordinance being postponed were Brian Zacharias, Eric Claunch, Marquis, Travis Holleman, Jimmy Brown, Streetman and Keri Lovato.

Voting against the postponement were Carlos Peters, Tim Chandler, Wanda Smith, Jerry Haywood, Shakeenab and Mayor Joe Pitts.

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