Council selects parallel parking Sept. 10, 2009 A new downtown improvement plan that will increase parking stalls from 65 to 96 may not be enough to appease downtown business owners pleading for a return to long-ago angled parking.
The Antigo Common Council Wednesday approved the parallel parking and center median plan on a 6-3 vote, after repeatedly rebuffing attempts at amendments to switch to an angled parking concept or some sort of hybrid of the two.
Vote was 6-3 with Vern Cahak, Joe Kapusta and Bob Noskowiak opposed. In favor were Tim Kassis, Jim Darling, Brandon Zelazoski, Reinhardt Balcerzak, Patty Shinners and Maggie Turnbull.
“All of the people who have approached me about this are opposed to angled parking,” Turnbull said, adding she had a responsibility to represent her Ninth Ward constituents.
Kassis and Balcerzak echoed those comments.
But Cahak and Noskowiak offered a different viewpoint, stressing the investment the business owners have in the downtown area.
“This council should listen to the people affected by this, the downtown businesses,” Cahak said.
“We’re really not listening to our people in the downtown area,” Noskowiak said. “They are the ones who have the investment.”
Those people spoke their minds loud and clear during the public comment portion of the evening, questioning everything from the center median and concerns over snow removal to the need for customers to be able to park in front of a business.
“A business owner wished to have people pull up in front of his building,” Gordon Neve of Neve’s Furniture and Flooring, a downtown anchor, said. “None of us want to leave the downtown. There has to be a happy something-or-other so we can work together and prosper.”
Mary Ann Kamps of Avenue West said the city must look toward a future with a full complement of stores, a place where people come to go shopping.
“That may be a pie-in-the-sky hope but it’s going to happen,” she said, stressing that those shoppers need the maximum number of parking spaces made available by angled parking.”
But others said angled parking creates hazards for drivers.
“I hold my breath every time I back out of there,” Ron Nonnemacher said of his regular trips to Tomahawk, which has angled parking. “Angle parking is not the way to go. It’s dangerous.”
Aldermen made several attempts to amend the recommendation by the Springbrook and Downtown Revitalization Steering Committee to recommend the parallel parking redesign.
The first, offered by Cahak, would have amended the plan to include angled parking. It failed 7-2 with Noskowiak joining Cahak in support.
Turnbull then offered up a hybrid, asymmetrical design, with angled parking on the south side, parallel parking on the north and a center median. It failed 6-3, with Noskowiak and Cahak joining Turnbull in support.
Turnbull tried again, in an attempt, she said, to cover all the bases. That amendment called for the hybrid design with no median. In failed on an identical 6-2 vote.
Kapusta made one last effort. His amendment to have parallel parking with no center median died for lack of a second.
In a related matter, the council hired Schreiber Anderson and Associates, which has assisted with the preliminary design, to help with the overall design of the downtown at a cost not to exceed $10,000. Kapusta was opposed.
The state of Wisconsin is anticipating construction of the Highway 64 bypass of downtown Antigo in 2011 and the city must have a concept of how it wants the downtown to look—for many decades to come—when the actual design process gets underway, leading to the need for an early decision.
As part of the bypass work, it is anticipated that the state will fund 80 percent of the repairs and changes to Fifth Avenue through downtown through a series of grants. It will then turn over the completed road to local control.
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