Scranton City Council is expected to vote on a second proposal to change parking in the city.
The new plan, negotiated over the past week, eliminates a recommendation to require paid parking at kiosks on Saturdays. And extends paid parking during the weekdays by two hours, instead of the previously proposed three hours. The deal would be in place for the next three years.
"I think this is a good deal where we take off that Saturday having listened to our residents and our businesses, and come back three years from now and make this decision together again as a city,” Mayor Paige Cognetti said while speaking with reporters at city hall this afternoon.
If approved by council, on-street paid parking hours Monday to Friday will be from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., instead of a previously proposed 7 a.m. start. The current weekday hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Last Tuesday, business owners, residents and nonprofits showed up at Scranton's City Council meeting to protest extending the hours required to pay for street parking.
They said students rely on free parking hours as well as the patrons of restaurants, businesses, medical offices and even the public libraries.
The burden of debt
The city leases its parking garages and parking meters to the nonprofit, Grow America, formerly called the National Development Council. The nonprofit took over managing downtown parking in 2016 as part of then-Mayor Bill Courtright’s financial recovery plan for the city. The deal helped the city relieve itself of the parking system's debt, which city council had defaulted on paying years before.
At the time, it was called the “most complicated transaction ever for the city.”
Now, almost 10 years later, Grow America still has $45 million in parking debt.
The nonprofit secured a deal with the investment firm, AllianceBerstein, that eliminates $15 million by restructuring the debt but requires extending paid street parking hours, Dave Trevisani, from Community Development Property Scranton, a Grow America arm, told council.
The nonprofit asked city council to approve extending payment hours as part of a proposal to ensure the payment of that debt. Nonprofit representatives said those current bonds could go into default without refinancing.
Council tied 2-2 on the vote to change the parking, which killed the proposal. Members Mark McAndrew and Tom Schuster voted no. Council president Gerald Smurl and member Jessica Rothchild voted yes. Councilman Bill King was absent.
All council members had issues with the proposal.
Back to the table
City representatives, including Solicitor Jessica Eskra, and Grow America representatives said last week they would head back into discussions with AllianceBerstein.
"We were able to go successfully back to the negotiating table with the bond holders and negotiate out the Saturday parking based on the residents and businesses expressing their concerns," said Cognetti.
The caveat though is that the city will be asked to contribute $50,000 more a year into those debt payments, an increase from $200,000 to $250,000 that was in the original plan.
“We have to make up some sort of the difference between the revenue that was built into the financial model for that Saturday,” she said.
Cognetti said originally the investment firm asked the city to contribute $75,000 more but they were able to negotiate the lower rate.
"Then at year three, we'll be back where the city and city council will decide whether to keep paying that extra money, which could increase depending on the modeling, or if Saturday parking would go into implementation,” she said.
Trevisani said last Tuesday that one reason for extending weekday paid parking hours was to get downtown residents off the streets and into the garages and also create more turn around for the on-street parking spots as the downtown continues to grow.
It costs $1 an hour to park in the city’s four parking garages. Residents who live downtown are able to pay $74 a month to park in a garage, Cognetti said.
Part of the new plan is also to work on more community engagement over the next three years, said Cognetti.
The mayor said city council must vote tonight or else risk the bonds going into default and then the system going into receivership.
“It wouldn't be business owners and city council and the mayor and residents weighing in and the library, it would just be a receiver saying, ‘I'm sorry. We have Saturday parking and you have to tough it out'," she said. "So we really need this deal to go through. None of us wants to be in this position.”
Scranton City Council meets at 6:30 p.m. tonight at Scranton City Hall, 340 North Washington Ave.
