Glens Falls again giving parking tickets; hospital friction

By Cathy DeDe, Chronicle Managing Editor

The City of Glens Falls has hired a new Traffic Control Assistant, responsible for enforcing parking restrictions, about a year after the prior officer retired.

Police Chief Jarred Smith said in a release that the City is in a “training and transition period” — “for both our new TCA and for our area drivers.

“For now, only warning notices will be given out.” Chief Smith wrote, adding, “It is important to note” the new TCA will begin issuing citations for parking violations on August 1.

A Glens Falls Hospital worker who asked not to be identified contacted The Chronicle, expressing alarm after receiving a warning ticket that said the City will return to enforcing the two-hour parking limit on Hudson Avenue.

The hospital worker said they have “nowhere else to park.”

Contacted by The Chronicle, Hospital spokesperson Ray Agnew said there’s “more than enough parking for all employees at any time.” He said the hospital doesn’t see it as a hardship to limit parking on Hudson Avenue to two hours.

Mr. Agnew said, via email, “We have approximately 500 spaces made available to the hospital daily, Monday to Friday, in the Park Street Parking Garage, with 134 available on the weekends.

“In addition to this lot, we have several other dedicated employee lots.”

The worker who contact us disagreed, insisting many hospital workers signed a letter to the City of Glens Falls that asked “what those spots are needed for except us hospital workers? The patients get to park in their lot. There are no businesses around us in need of parking space. Hudson Headwaters Health Network across the street has parking lots for their employees as well as patients.”

“Long story short,” the caller said, “is that whole entire road out front, on both sides, all the way to the post office, is people that are just trying to go to work.”

Parking enforcement was suspended during Covid, and during the last year while the City had no traffic assistant.

Now, the caller said, if the limit is again enforced, “We have to scramble constantly and go down to try to move our vehicle every two hours, because we’re gonna get tickets. And I was told by the City, there’s ample parking down back,” in a second overflow hospital lot at Murray Street.

“If you’ve ever driven by there between seven and four, it’s full. We can’t park in the physicians lot, and there’s only so many passes for the parking garage. All of my staff go to the parking garage, but they’re there at seven in the morning.”

By 7:45 a.m., the caller said, the parking garage on Park Street is full.

The caller said, “I remember when I stopped parking out in the road because I had gotten like, five tickets. I was going down to Murray Street, and not only was that lot full, they were parking us across the street in a grass lot. So the hospital is not telling the truth. There is not ample parking.

“There aren’t any other businesses in this vicinity that need the parking except the hospital. We’re just trying to find a place to park to go to work.”

Mayor Collins: I’m still for paid parking

Chronicle Managing Editor Cathy DeDe writes: Asked about the Glens Falls Hospital parking situation, Mayor Bill Collins turned to the bigger picture:

“We need parking for employees, and we need employers to pay for some of it,” he said.

“In our core downtown, I think it needs to be paid parking for visitors.

“And in our outskirts on the streets, I think we need to have some minimally paid registered parking for our employees, and they’re going to have to walk a block or two.”

“We’ve identified streets like East Washington, Pearl and others,” he said.

“Then we need to have covered parking, like in a parking garage, or in the new parking we’re trying to develop for people who live downtown, again, paid for some amount so that it’s not abused.”

“It’s not about generating money,” Mayor Collins says. “It’d be nice to have it so it pays for itself. But the more important thing is to make sure, we’re getting so busy, we need to have places for people to park who come in and shop.”

“What we have now is a 40-year amalgamation of all these incidental, reactive parking laws that we need to reset, and look at how to make Glens Falls functioning in its new world of being so busy.

“I’m not so egotistical to think that I should make those decisions in a vacuum. We need a committee of people, who cannot have self interest, that can look and make some objective decisions about what’s best for our city, that promotes business and allows people that are working down here a place to park.”

“We do need to change this,” Mayor Collins said. “Right now we’re working on our Comprehensive Plan. I’m hoping they’ll take up parking…maybe with a subcommittee.”

The Mayor said the City hasn’t received specific complaints from businesses nearby about hospital workers parking on Hudson Avenue.

“What we have is everybody who’s complaining is complaining about their specific situation.”

“I feel for (the hospital workers) parking on Hudson Avenue. I do. I appreciate that, and I’m sorry but I don’t think a long term plan is for them to park all day along both sides of Hudson Avenue.

He said, “The reality is Glens Falls Hospital, as our biggest employer, has an amazing amount of parking.”

He said the workers “really need to talk to their employer, because their employer says they have plenty of parking.”

Last officer quit after 2 days

The City of Glens Falls has hired a new Traffic Control Assistant who will issue tickets.

Mayor Collins said they previously hired a person who left quickly.

“A downtown employee came out and yelled at the poor guy and intimidated him so much that he resigned after two days on the job.”

Copyright © 2024 Lone Oak Publishing Co., Inc. All Rights Reserved