Senate Bill 75 quietly found its way through the General Assembly and was allowed to pass without the governor’s signature or the endorsement of Lexington city government or its parking authority, LexPark.
It did so with the backing of influential Georgetown Republican Damon Thayer, who shepherded the bill through the process after expressing concerns about complaints he was hearing from downtown businesses and voicing criticism of LexPark’s controversial rate hikes and expansion of enforcement hours.
That debate, however, was one Mayor Linda Gorton says the city solved on its own by reaching a compromise that rolled back the new enforcement hours in return for an extra $200,000 annually from the city to pay for employee parking.
That was all done within Lexington’s current framework, which provides for an independent parking authority. Under the new law, any proposed rate hikes would go through city council first. Gorton had this to say about how she foresees the new process working:
"One of the pieces of that law is that council will, if there's ever a proposal to raise the fees again, council will approve that. I don't think we're going to see a proposal to raise them any time soon," Gorton said. "And then it does include... at least seeing their proposed budget. And the council may want to do that. That's fine."
But, Gorton stressed, they're not powers the city sought out – and she believes it was a local matter best dealt with under the local system.
Sen. Thayer, meanwhile, has said the original LexPark increases struck him as "extreme" and the reason for the bill was to make the parking authority accountable to elected representatives.
