GALVESTON — Parking on Galveston’s seawall will continue to be free, at least for the time being.
A majority of the city council, led by Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas, decided Thursday they would abandon tentative plans to ask voters to approve a parking fee program that city staff estimated would bring the city $1 million for beachfront amenities.
“The feedback I keep getting is all negative,” Thomas said.
“If anyone wants it on the ballot, I would like them to come forward and let us know.”
Thomas raised the seawall parking issue two weeks ago as a possible way to raise money for beach reconstruction and restroom and shower facilities.
The proposal lasted about as long as it did the last time she brought it up, in 2005.
In both cases, public outcry encouraged the mayor to beat a hasty retreat.
During the council budget retreat, only Councilman Danny Weber said he was opposed to putting a parking fee program on the ballot.
But by Thursday, thee other council members, including Thomas, decided he was right.
Council members Juan Peña and Linda Colbert joined the mayor in saying they thought too many people either were opposed to the plan or had questions about it to call for a vote.
Council members Barbara Roberts, Diana Puccetti and Patricia Bolton-Legg said they thought voters should have the option to make their opinions official in an election result.
In May 2004, Galveston voters approved modifying the city’s charter to require any seawall parking fee plan be put to a vote.
Although a parking program will not be on a ballot this year, the council did not completely shut the door on the possibility of a future vote.
Roberts and Bolton-Legg asked the city manager, Steve LeBlanc, to finalize the details of a proposed parking fee program and present it at a future council meeting to allow members to decide whether they wanted to put the issue on the ballot.
To help make up for the funding they will not get from a parking fee program, LeBlanc gave council a list of other possible revenue sources that could pay for $4.5 million of seawall improvements that include visitors’ centers, restrooms, showers and planter boxes.
The funding option considered most likely to succeed will be on the November ballot.
The council will ask voters in three propositions to extend the half penny sales tax used now to fund beach reconstruction, sewers, streets and drainage.
The funds are being used to pay off bonds that will expire in 2009 and 2015. Once they are paid off, the city can use the money for other economic development and tourism projects.
The half penny tax is worth about $4 million and can pay for about $40 million in bonds.
