City will ask post office for eight parking spots

Andrew Edwards

The City Council voted Tuesday night to ask Mayor Cheryl Kinsman to

take on a quest to allow the public to park in eight spaces recently

reserved to post office employees.

“We will take our jousting tools and go forward,” Kinsman said

after the City Council voted unanimously to assign her the challenge.

Her task is to negotiate with postal officials for a trade, if the

post office would agree to allow short term customers to use the

parking spaces in the Ocean Avenue lot, the city would give post

office employees free parking in the Lumberyard Lot or City Employee

Lot. Both parking lots are near the corner of Forest Avenue and

Laguna Canyon Road.

Councilwoman Toni Iseman, who brought the proposal to the council,

said she thought employees could be convinced to walk to work from

the Forest Avenue lot, and compared the journey to walks made by

employees of large facilities, like a college.

“Walking a block to work is not considered a long way to walk in a

lot of work situations,” Iseman said.

When asked about whether it would be acceptable to park further

from work, a postal employee said everyone at the post office had

been instructed not to talk about parking issues.

As of Wednesday, trade talks had not yet begun. City Manager Ken

Frank said he had spoken with postal officials about opening up the

spaces on weekends and after-hours, but that an arrangement on those

ideas was not reached.

“They didn’t think that would work,” Frank said.

The parking lot is owned by Koss Real Estate Investments, the firm

that also owns the Lumberyard Mall. Property Manager Anthony Haas

said he did not know if the trade idea would work.

The station manager for the Downtown post office, Fernando Romero,

said he had not yet heard of any ideas for a trade.

With Downtown parking at a premium, a successful negotiation would

be a boon to many post office customers.

“I think it would be a big thing. The 30-minute thing was great,”

Lagunan Ginny Nicolaus said as she exited the post office.