| City of Anacortes Impounds Guemes Vehicle On May 12th at 2:00 pm , my wife, Libby Garcia was returning from work in our truck. As she pulled in to the street parking on 6th street, bordering Lion’s Park, she noticed that the parking on 6th street had been marked with a yellow line. She pulled ahead and parked on the side of the street, just west of the opening to the park parking lot. At 9:00 am, on May 13th, the car was ticketed for parking in the street and immediately impounded. There is no signage designating it as a no parking zone, nor is there a yellow line. Directly across the street, new signage has been installed designating this area as a no parking zone. The impound was $132 and the parking ticket was $38. This area has historically been used as Guemes Parking particularly on 3-day and holiday weekends in the summer. It is “packed” during ferry haul outs and no car has ever been ticketed. My own vehicle had spent at least 5 consecutive days parked in precisely this spot this spring, without incident. Why can’t the City of Anacortes and Skagit County communicate for the good of the People? The story of Guemes Ferry parking on the Anacortes side has been a study in how two government entities can work at odds with each other to the detriment of their people. On May 12th, despite the fact that the county is working on developing ferry parking, the City of Anacortes decides to close street parking on 6th street in front of Lion’s Park. This was done at precisely the time when the new parking that is being developed by the county is barricaded with cyclone fence, rendering it unusable. This lack of communication, cooperation and neighborly courtesy came to a head during the last ferry haul out. For those of you unfamiliar with the situation, when the ferry is out for maintenance, the residents of Guemes need to park their cars over on the Anacortes side since only a passenger launch operates. It was at this exact time last year that the city barricaded half of the parking nearest the ferry to begin construction of the park. A two week delay would’ve been a neighborly gesture towards the people of Guemes Island and the residents of that part of the city who were faced with parking conditions that were worse than those experienced during a normal haul out. Faced with the loss of this much parking, the county put gravel into a narrow lot in the old railway right of way between Anchor Cove Marina and 6th street. This lot spent much of the winter under as much as 8 inches of standing water. This spring, the county got past the legal red tape to demolish the old cannery warehouse on the site of the proposed new parking. Although the City of Anacortes had itself demolished “historical buildings” to provide parking for City Hall in the past few years, the city was of little help in clearing the way for the new parking. My questions to the Mayor and Anacortes City Council are: The street parking bordering Lion’s Park doesn’t impinge upon access to the Park or residences. Why was this area made a yellow zone? Why when the county’s parking is under construction and unavailable for parking is it imperative to further reduce the parking? Why was the south side of 6th, which currently fronts a vacant lot, made into a no parking zone? The residents of Guemes Island, its summer vacationers and their guests put a lot of money into the economy of Anacortes. I’m surprised at what appears to be a “thumb in the eye” of both islanders and the county government. Victor
Garcia |
