COUNCIL DELAYS VOTE ON KAGE HILLS PARKING

CAPE GIRARDEAU -- The City Council Wednesday tabled action on a proposal to repeal parking restrictions on Kage Hills Drive after 10 residents of the street attended the meeting to oppose the parking ban.

Dr. Paul Spence, of 3212 Kage Hills Drive, was one of 11 residents who signed a petition asking the council to repeal the parking ban that it approved Dec. 19. Sixteen people own property along the street.

Spence, and others at the meeting, said they would settle for no-parking along the crest of a hill on the street provided parking was allowed on at least one side of the remainder of the street.

"Before we had a concrete road put in, there were no parking restrictions," Spence said. "There never have been, and now all of sudden we've got a street, and there's restricted parking."

Spence said on-street parking is needed when residents entertain friends and family members. He said he doubted anyone would park overnight on the street.

"Everybody in this neighborhood has got some common sense," he said. "We're not going to present a hazard for emergency vehicles and we're not going to block driveways."

But Gene Hindman, Cape Girardeau's fire chief, said he was against allowing any parking on the 20-foot street. He said the street's too narrow to allow for the safe passage of emergency and sanitation vehicles when cars are parked even on one side.

"The trucks are a minimum of eight feet wide, and when you add for mirrors you can expect 10 feet," Hindman said. "That would be true of garbage trucks also. On a 20-foot street, you've got 12 inches of curbs on each side, so you're talking about 18 feet of driveable surface."

Hindman said that if the ground is wet, fire trucks could easily become stuck if they were forced to leave the pavement to avoid a parked vehicle.

But Spence said the city doesn't restrict parking on other paved streets of the same width. He called the no-parking law a "railroad job" because the city didn't inform the residents that parking would be restricted when they agreed to a 20-foot-wide street.

"It seems to me like somebody is looking for excuses to restrict parking," Spence added.

Councilman Al Spradling III said he thought the city was inconsistent by allowing parking on some 20-foot-wide streets and not others.

Spence said that while he wouldn't oppose restricting parking on one side of the street to assure safety, the "real logical option" would be to lower the street's speed limit.

"It looks to me like we're doing this backwards," he said. "You should take the (no parking) signs down and go back and ask for those who want to restrict parking."

Phyllis Spence said the road has little traffic and wouldn't be a safety problem.

Mayor Gene Rhodes said he favored repealing the no-parking law. Rhodes didn't attend the council meetings where the parking law was passed.

But Del and Mary Helen Brunton, of 3217 Kage Hills, said they favored the no-parking law. Del Brunton said safety should be the city's primary concern.

Mrs. Brunton said streets are built to move traffic, not to be a "parking lot." She also said there were days prior to the parking restriction when she didn't receive her mail because parked cars blocked her mailbox.

Mrs. Brunton said she and her husband were tax billed for about 22 percent of the cost of the street. She said that with the money saved by the other residents for the street, they could afford to widen their driveways for additional parking.

Mrs. Brunton said she wouldn't be opposed to a compromise allowing parking only on one side of the street, as long as parking was prohibited on the street's hill where it's difficult to see oncoming traffic. "I'm tired of the battle of the hill," she added.

The council indicated it would consider allowing parking on the south side of the street, provided there was no parking on the crest of the hill. The council tabled the measure to give the city staff time to determine exact distances in regards to the parking restrictions.

In other action Wednesday, the council voted to change its meeting schedule again, returning to a schedule of holding study sessions and regular meetings on the same night.

Under this schedule, the council's study sessions and voting sessions will be conducted the first and third Monday of each month. The study session will begin at 5 p.m. and the voting session at 7:30 p.m. The new schedule takes effect March 4.

For the past few months, the council has been holding study sessions on the first and third Mondays and has held their voting sessions on the first and third Wednesdays.