Sandpoint council votes to change paid parking policy

Removes on-street kiosk use with option to extend parking stay by text or app

By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff

Three weeks after pausing the downtown paid parking program that has roiled community opinion since its rollout on July 1, the Sandpoint City Council voted Aug. 4 to approve a motion 5-1 altering policies in an attempt to lessen frustration by users and business owners alike.

Councilor Kyle Schreiber made the motion, which directed staff to “discontinue use of the downtown street parking kiosks, remove the option to purchase additional curbside time via kiosk, but include the option to purchase additional time via text and app, and administer the downtown two-hour zone as a strict two-hour maximum zone unless additional time has been purchased via text or app through the city-authorized observation and enforcement methods.”

That means the kiosks installed in the two-hour, on-street parking zone in the downtown core will be physically removed and motorists parking beyond the two-hour limit would be subject to a $50 citation for overstaying their time. However, they would have the option to add time to their parking stay and avoid a ticket by texting a number indicated by to-be-installed signage or through the Park Smarter mobile app.

In addition, Schreiber’s successful motion instructed staff to move forward with a plan to offer free permits for city residents starting in 2027 — after the current $20 resident permits have lapsed at the end of the calendar year — and introduce a “hardship pass” for Bonner County residents.

Details of those new permits will be worked out at a future date.

Finally, the motion called for the reinstatement of the Sandpoint Parking Committee to serve as an ongoing citizen advisory group on parking issues.

The motion does not affect paid parking at the city-owned lots, including City Beach, the downtown City Lot, Pend d’Oreille Bay Trail and other waterfront lots where kiosks are currently installed — those will continue to operate as they have since July 1, with hourly paid parking or longer-stay access through $20 city or $35 county resident passes.

Councilors Joel Aispuro, Pam Duquette, Schreiber, Joe Tate and Joshua Torrez voted in favor, with Council President Deb Ruehle in opposition.

“I just want to take you back to why we originally decided to go with a kiosk system, so people didn’t have to interface [with their phones], if people don’t have smartphones, if people only have flip phones — that was one of the complaints that we got — and that’s one of the reasons we went with the kiosk system,” said Ruehle.

Throughout the weeks of deliberation, Ruehle has maintained her willingness to “stick with what we originally decided” with the downtown two-zone kiosks, “and get the data and see how that reflects.”

She has also pushed back at the upset expressed by Bonner County residents over the paid parking program, and opposed Schreiber’s idea of offering a “hardship pass.”

“I appreciate that the Bonner County residents use the City Beach. I appreciate the fact that many of their relatives built houses in the Sandpoint city limits and paid Sandpoint city taxes for many, many years,” she said. “Nothing is free. Just because you had relatives here doesn’t allow you to take advantage of the city residents that live here and pay for that. We pay for the toilet paper. We pay the employees, we pay for the trash pickup. We do all those things. And whether or not you’re frustrated, the reality is, I sit up here to represent the citizens of Sandpoint who elected me. …

“My suggestion to county residents would be to park your car elsewhere, ride your bike into town, and you don’t have to worry about it. But to take advantage of the city residents, I think, is unfair,” added Ruehle, who is facing a recall effort along with Mayor Jeremy Grimm over the parking program.

Tara Brady, who identified herself as a multi-generational Sandpoint local who lives in the county, testified earlier in the meeting that, “Growing up here, most of the people didn’t have much money. Thankfully it didn’t cost much to live here, and we were able to enjoy all that was around us for free. Had there been fees to use the City Beach, I don’t think many people would have been able to utilize it.”

That said, she added that while Sandpoint’s demographics have changed over the years — “There are people moving here that have boats that cost more than people’s homes” — she reminded the council that the area still includes a large low-income population that struggles with living expenses both in the city limits and county.

“The original intent of the Lion’s [Club] members and the entire community who helped make the beach what it is today was that the community had a free place that they could come together and enjoy their town,” Brady said. “To many of us, it feels like the heart of this town is being eaten up, sold and privatized. … Just because we choose to live outside of city limits does not mean that this is not still our hometown. Our voices matter. They should not be discredited. We love our hometown. We just want to make sure that we can recognize it in a few years.”

Others who testified during the public comment portion of the meeting — including representatives of business owners — expressed their concerns that paid on-street kiosk parking had hurt merchants’ bottom line.

“Downtown on First and Cedar and Second, if we could just not do the meters there, I think that would really help our city and the pulse of the business owners,” said Stacey Mueller, who manages the Cedar Street Bridge. 

Grimm countered that the vast majority of the oppositional comments he’d received on the paid parking program came from county, rather than city, residents and the latter by and large supported and thanked the mayor and council for their work. 

“I think this parking plan, especially at the beach and the City Lot, makes perfect sense,” he said, adding that he liked Schreiber’s idea of reverting to a text or app option to extend two-hour parking using signage, rather than kiosks, and “fully support[ed] reimplementing the Parking Committee so we have a balanced group who can advise us on their thoughts on this subject.”

For his part, Torrez reported that he’d visited as many downtown businesses as possible the week before, and while “some were OK with it, some were basically concerned that it was scaring their customers away. What also came up was that the businesses had to educate their customers on how to utilize the service.”

“From my perspective, businesses need to be in business to make money, not educate people on how to work parking meters,” he added.

Following the passage of Schreiber’s motion regarding the paid parking program, the council voted unanimously to approve its updated parking ordinance, which clarified a number of sections to “provide authority for metered and paid parking areas, including kiosks, mobile payment and license plate-based parking sessions; remove outdated references to the Third Avenue City lot and Sand Creek lot as free 24-hour parking lots”; and otherwise align with the adopted parking management policy.

Watch the full meeting at the city of Sandpoint’s YouTube channel.