Etna Green Finds Parking Restriction Already Enacted
Posted
Jordan Fouts-
ETNA GREEN – Three residents stormed out of the council meeting Tuesday after voicing displeasure with how Etna Green is handling parking problems. Town council began looking earlier this year at restricting overnight parking on Walnut Street downtown to make snow plowing less difficult. Residents attended council meetings in recent months to ask for an alternative plan, saying they don’t want to be punished for other people failing to move their cars. But after doing some digging, council found that a parking restriction is already on the books. It even allows for towing vehicles away. Council President Andy Cook said Tuesday he would like to extend the ban, which applies from midnight to 6 a.m. in the low 100 blocks of North and South Walnut streets, down to the southern town limits. He also drafted a plan to establish parallel parking on both sides of Walnut Street downtown. Council will vote on the proposals at a later meeting. Resident Dave Price accused Cook of abusing his position as a councilman to make his job easier plowing snow as a town employee. Councilman Keith Claassen responded that Cook can’t change the law by himself, and that he had brought up the problem because the town has to remove snow itself. Price also accused Cook of packing snow around cars out of anger while plowing, and wanted him to apologize for setting in motion what he described as a chain of events that could have lead to a fiery death and a lawsuit against the town. “And if ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we’d all be riding horses,” Cook responded. He also remarked that he only wanted to enforce a law that was already on the books, something the town could have done last year, and that doing so would ensure there would be no problems in the future. “It should never have been there in the first place,” Price said. “I didn’t put it there,” Cook replied. He also noted that “Not every ordinance is enforced all the time – if it was, this wouldn’t be a very nice place to live.” He said enforcement of the parking ban wouldn’t amount to towing cars away at the first sight of a snowflake, but that he would mark vehicles with a sticker to give owners a chance to move them. In the middle of the back-and-forth, resident Cheryl Cook asked what happened to allowing the community to solve the problem. She and two others walked out moments later, saying as she left that she was “sorry for moving to this community.” Price remained and asked further questions about town law, mostly centered around the hydrant maintenance fee. He remarked that residents might grumble less if the fee – formerly included in property taxes until changes were handed down by the state legislature, and which covers everything from water use to water town maintenance – were instead named something like “fire protection.” Clerk-Treasurer Laura Baker said changing the name of the fee would be as easy as making a phonecall to the company that handles their billing. She noted earlier in the meeting that the town will perform hydrant flushing May 27 to 29. Residents should avoid doing laundry at that time and should run the faucet for a while if the water is discolored, she said, and can call town offices if they have any problems. Also during the meeting, council approved $250 for purchasing flowers for the town park and a $100 donation for the Destination Imagination student leadership program.
