By COLE REIF
Great Bend Post
The City of Great Bend is going to examine all of their specialized
business parking throughout town after a business requested to reserve a
downtown stall for their building.
The Great Bend Tribune contacted the city to request 15-minute parking for one
parking stall in front of their business on Forest Avenue. The Tribune stated
elderly customers are having difficulties utilizing the parallel parking or are
having to park further from the business to access it. At first, the Tribune
wanted to reserve the parking stall near the alley strictly for newspaper
purposes, but a compromised request asked for 15-minute parking between the
hours of 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The Great Bend City Council and Mayor Cody Schmidt were not keen on the idea of
singling out public parking for a business.
"It just opens a can of worms for every business, not just downtown," said Schmidt. "I think we all understand downtown can get hectic. That's my only concern...I see more businesses coming to council wanting help with parking for their customers. I do see where they are coming from, but it's one of those things once you start how do you stop it."
With special business parking already in existence around town, including in
front of City Hall, the city council asked Public Works Director Jason Cauley
to research how many special business parking stalls there are. The agenda item was
tabled for the meeting on March 20.
RELATED STORY: 15-minute parking stall approved, Great Bend expects more requests