Argenta News - Adding Parking Injury to Insult

Adding Parking Injury to Insult

Written by Scott Miller

Thursday, July 10 2008

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I had an interesting conversation with the manager of the valet parking firm the ballpark has hired to provide the valet parking for Valentine's Restaurant. As it turns out, the ballpark pays the valet firm $1000 per month to provide the parking attendants and Valentine provides the parking spaces and the equipment. The manager hires the valets on an as-needed basis paying them $20 to $50 per event and the valets get to keep the tips, which the manager reported as good.

The injury here is that the ballpark has an extra expense of $1,000 per mointh and if used over the course of the full year amounts to $12,000. Since the City splits the profits at the ballpark with the Travelers, this valet parking is costing the citizens of NLR up to $6,000 in money back from the ballpark. So not only is the City giving away public parking spaces to the ballpark to "manage" and restrict, the City is actually giving away taxpayer dollars for the ballpark and Valentines to provide that valet service. Perhaps someone should audit the Traveler books to see what else the NLR taxpyers are paying for under the classification of ballpark expenses.

Any other restaurant downtown want in on this sweetheart deal???

And what about the insult of the City giving away those 29 parking spaces??

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Valentines Restaurant like all other other Argenta restaurants is located in a NLR C-6 zoning classification which does not require the operator/owner of the restaurant to provide parking. Even of Valentines were located outside the C-6 zonng area in McCain or Park Hill they would only be required to provide one parking space per 100 sq. ft of area. Rough measurement of the seating and bar area revaled the reatuarant has about 1200 sq. ft of area. This means if Valentine's were any other restaurant, they would only need 12 spaces. So why does the Mayor want to give them 29 spaces?

Mayor, let Valentines and the ballpark "manage" the 11 parkinfg spaces on the west side of Willow Street that are at least partially on the ballpark property. But why give them the 18 public spaces in the public street right of way on the east side of Willow Street? NO MORE SPECIAL FAVORS

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Comments (5)

Interesting...
Written by tsudohnimh, on 10-07-2008 23:34
Thanks for the reminder that the city shares in profits and therefore irresponsible decisions like these should be squashed instead of encouraged.

Tsudohnimh
KnowtheNetwork.com

The Bright Side
Written by tsudohnimh, on 10-07-2008 23:38
Look on the bright side. You could live in Sherwood where the city council defies the will of people and plunges forward to waste millions on a decaying golf course and legal fees.

Bill Valentine's math skills...
Written by reader, on 11-07-2008 00:24
How does 12 turn into 29?

You can bet a ballpark-dog against a plate of pasta that a lot of muck-e-mucks just use the Valentine's Valet Parking to simply attend the ball game and don't even go in the restaurant.

That's OK by Bill.

He just likes to pretend he's a muck-e-muck, too.

That's a very good idea about taking a look at the books over there.

There's no telling what's really going on and how many expenses that are nothing but favoritism are ending up in the taxpayer's lap.

Example: The upcoming South Central Six-State Mobilehome Rally in September.

The Travs are down at that time but the Rally websites show all kinds of "events" taking place at the Ballpark specifically for THEM on every night of the Rally including the opening night which is being called the "Welcoming with local and State dignitaries" ( Whatever that means ).

It costs $300 every time you throw the switch to just turn the lights ON at that Ballpark. Not to mention the run-time cost of those puppies or any kind of rental fee ???? for the facility itself?

So who the heck is lined up to pay for that all during this Mobilehome Rally?

You can bet it will all just get buried in some 'shared maintenance' budget and be paid for by the taxpayers.

Confidence
Written by Chauncy Gardener, on 11-07-2008 10:23
This is a fair questioning of those in government to give account. The parties involved need to answer. In another post the parking issue was tied to the r.v. park issue. It appears to me there are legitimate questions. The responsible parties will need to answer wisely to turn the criticism to praise.
All the great development going on in Argenta is dependent on people's confidence. It is said that money has this strange ability to mount up on wings and fly away. If I had a restaurant and I wasted time ignoring or squelching the complaints of my customers, my customers will still vote with their feet, will they not? So, you leaders, please step up and give a clear and an acceptable account before you dig deeper. Those of us with property here are vested and what you do affects us.

It would be nice
Written by darkcrwler, on 11-07-2008 12:07
Chauncy,

I agree! Unfortunately, those so called 'leaders' live in glass castles in the sky over on Cherry Hill and could care less what us Argenta 'peasants' are concerned about. We should feel lucky to have them ruling us and making those tough decisions that they know we are not smart enough to make. One thing that I can't figure out though - didn't the FEUDAL SYSTEM end around the 15th century??? You think someone ought to tell our mayor this?