Manitou Springs residents spoke out about the City’s new system for managing resident parking, which does away with physical passes and stickers placed on cars in lieu of an online registration system, during this week’s city council meeting.
“The passes that we had to give to visitors were perfectly acceptable,” said resident Ila Quinn. “The new system is absolutely not acceptable – I cannot get online every time somebody comes to visit me or drops in. I need the passes back. I’m handicapped, my mind does not work as well as it used to, unfortunately, but I need to have a system back where I can hand a pass to a visitor or give a pass to someone that is going to be coming to help me clean my house. I have physical therapists coming to my house on a constant basis. Going on the internet to notify the town that I have somebody at my house is not working for me.”
On Jan. 13 the City posted to Facebook about the new program. According to the City’s social media post, the new permit process began Jan. 13, and 2024 permits will be valid through Feb. 1. [The City of Manitou Springs clarified to the Bulletin in our Jan. 17 edition that permit holders whose permit was set to expire in January, or the first two weeks of February 2025, have until Feb. 15 to transition to the new system. Other permit holders will transition into the digital system when it is time to renew their permits. –ed]
“The City of Manitou Springs’ Parking and Mobility Department is thrilled to announce the implementation of a new digital parking permit system in collaboration with Parking Base, a leading provider of cloud-based parking solutions,” read the post. “This modernized approach will improve compliance, efficiency and security, while addressing issues like forged permits and parking pass abuse.”
Former Manitou Springs Stormwater Manager Mike Essam expressed privacy concerns about the new program.
“This parking policy has been very authoritarian – crammed down our throats,” he said. “I think it is extremely discriminatory. Not everyone has electronic submittal capability. Second, the burden it places on folks in the RPP, the residential parking program. We never wanted to be part of this, we were forced to be part of this, and yet this burden … is instilled upon us.”
He continued, “Literally the City is mandating that… anytime someone comes to my home to visit me, I have to go online in a timely manner and do an electronic submission. I essentially have to contribute information to a government database. This is all under penalty of a ticket if I don’t. I mean, that’s an unacceptable burden, let alone the invasion of privacy.”
Essan said he believes the parking system to constitute government overreach.
“A government mandate to report who comes to my home, and when – it’s preposterous,” he said. “I think authoritarian measures like this really need to be put in their place. I think it shows a very narrow and shallow thinking process from the administration office in implementing this policy. There were no considerations at all given to any of the residents, and their concerns and the burdens placed upon them with this.”
I don’t know why Council was not involved in this decision.
-Manitou Springs City Councilor Judith Chandler
Manitou Springs City Councilors also expressed concerns about the new program. “We need to change that,” said Councilor Julie Wolfe. “It’s not workable, it’s not logical, and whoever decided to invent this system wasn’t really thinking very much from the point of view of the resident. I talked to someone named James [Kelemen, Parking and Mobility Supervisor] today because I got an email that says I should discuss this issue with James in the parking section. He said, ‘Oh, we did it because it’s so much more convenient for us to do it this way.’ I’m like, ‘You know what? You’ve inconvenienced the whole public now so I think we need to go back.’ We need to change the system, we need to go back. Supposedly a week and two days from now is when everyone’s going to be getting tickets on their car if they don’t have a RPP thing. It’s a mess.”
Councilor Judith Chandler emphasized the new parking program was not a decision made by the Manitou Springs City Council. “This was not a council decision,” she said. “Council was not involved in making this decision, and I’m going to say that I don’t know why Council was not involved in this decision. We should have been and that upsets me as much as the complaints from our residents. This is ridiculous.”
