Decatur Consolidates Positions to Create “Parking Manager” Job
Decatur Metro | November 2, 2010“May God have mercy on this person’s soul.”
So said Mayor Bill Floyd when the city commission came upon this particular action item during last night’s Decatur City Commission meeting.
After hearing a synopsis of the city’s request from Assistant City Manager Lyn Menne to consolidate the two parking supervisor positions into one, higher paid Parking Manager position, the city commission unanimously approved the change. (One position is currently vacant. The other employee is being recommended to take on the new job with the Decatur Tourism Bureau.)
This individual may well be crying “Mercy!” by the time they learn the full job description and get a taste of all the attention and criticism that will inevitably come with the territory.
According to Ms. Meene’s note to the commission (page 23), this person will have experience running a comprehensive and holistic parking management program and will be tasked with coming up an “efficient and effective downtown parking management plan.” This means anything from developing working relationships with private property lot owners, to assisting downtown employees with finding off-site parking for their employees, to finding ways to publicize the “wide array” of parking options to visitors, to improving bike parking, pedestrian safety and maintaining parking data to “assist with the implementation of the Community Transportation Plan.
(During last night’s meeting one of the commissioners asked whether this person would also be tasked with giving out parking tickets. Ms. Menne stated that while this person would supervise the 4 part-time PALS employees already tasked with giving parking tickets, they would spend a large majority of their time working on the other items described above.)