YAKIMA, Wash.- The latest update to the parking system in Downtown Yakima is now in place. Community Service Officers with the Yakima Police Department are tracking city-owned parking lots to enforce the two-hour free parking limit.
If cars are not moved within the two-hour limit, tickets will be issued, most costing around $50. While most activities downtown can be done within two hours, the same cannot be said for employees who are on shift.
“It’s just difficult for me to ask my employees every two hours to move their vehicles or risk a $50 fine every single time,” says the General Manager of the E.Z. Tiger, Kennedy Wilson-Avalos. “It feels like too much. It’s already stressful working in this environment sometimes.”
The restaurant on Chestnut Avenue has been vocal about its feelings on the parking system. With no employee designated parking in the area, its workers share the parking lot that lays behind the Olive Garden, Sports Center and Cowiche Canyon Kitchen.
Wilson-Avalos says her crew didn’t know about the change in the parking system until they received multiple tickets.
“I very much feel like we were blindsided because there was buzz about it but we didn’t get any official notice,” says Wilson-Avalos. “It’s just someone showed up and started writing us tickets.”
The city of Yakima says there was a “soft launch” of the system for weeks until the new software was installed, and people were trained.
“They have been putting on cars warnings saying, “if we were enforcing here, now, you’d be getting a ticket,” says Randy Beehler, a spokesman for the city.
Beehler says the options for downtown employees remains moving their car every two hours or purchasing a $50 per month parking permit. He thinks part of the confusion lies with this being the first downtown enforcement in three years.
“The bottom line is that the parking regulations that are in effect today, have been in effect for a long time,” says Beehler. “It was that break during the pandemic where regulations weren’t being enforced now, they are.”
The city says the decision to return to paid parking was brought to City Council in late-2022 by a group of business owners, part of the Downtown Association of Yakima.
The owners recommended raising the price of a monthly permit to $50, to help maintain and improve the city owned lots.
Beehler reports that multiple owners said they would be purchasing a set of parking passes for their employees, while some would have to pay out of pocket.
“The problem with that is they’re still $50 a month,” says Wilson-Avalos. “It comes out to over $600 a year and for people like ourselves, it’s just really not financially feasible.”
The general manager says she was not aware of any discussions between downtown business owners and City Council about the parking system.
“I was not privy to it,” says the E.Z. Tiger manager. “It kinda shocked me because in my eye, I’m like ‘how do we make downtown thrive if it becomes such a hassle to come down here?’ for employees and patrons alike.”
