Downtown workers are the customers

According to The Herald, the city of Everett spent $100,000 to study downtown parking. It wants to make free parking on the streets available to the “customers” of local businesses. To do this, it wants to force “downtown employees” to pay to park in garages. Unfortunately, the city and its $100,000 study fail to acknowledge that the “customers” of local businesses are the downtown employees.

Have city officials or their hired consultants walked the streets after hours or on weekends? They are empty and most businesses are closed. This is because the people who patronize local businesses are predominantly downtown employees. Downtown Everett is not big enough to offer the variety of shopping of a big city like Seattle. People who shop in downtown Seattle pay exorbitant parking fees, but they still shop in Seattle because Seattle offers variety. It is not the lack of free parking that dissuades shoppers from coming to downtown Everett, it is the lack of variety.

While I do not claim the right to break parking laws, I do, as a downtown employee, feel fully under-appreciated as a customer of downtown businesses. I give my hard-earned money to downtown businesses every day when I go to lunch, drop of my dry cleaning, get a cup of coffee or go to the bank. Yet the city, and its downtown businesses, view me as the “bad guy” because I also happen to work here.

Downtown employees are the lifeblood of downtown business (hockey fans and other Events Center crowds only come after hours and only patronize restaurants). The city should consider offering us free parking garages or designating parking on the edges of the downtown area for employees. Until the city and its businesses begin to “work with downtown employees” to solve perceived parking problems, I will take all of my business outside of downtown Everett.

Martin Mooney