Fountain Valley City Council studies fee-based parking at Mile Square Park

A fee-based parking program could be in the offing for Mile Square Park in Fountain Valley.

The City Council showed interest in a pilot program when the idea was presented in a study session on Tuesday.

The panel directed city staff to explore options for an app or web-based parking program with a plan for outsourcing parking enforcement to a third party. A council majority supportive of exploring such a program indicated the preferred option would be one that provided parking at no cost to residents of the city.

“I don’t want this to be a charge to Fountain Valley residents,” Mayor Glenn Grandis said. “We get a lot of people from outside our city who use the mile-square part of the park. … We’re still using city resources. It’s still our police, our fire, our costs, and it’s a way for us to have those that are using it to help pay for some of those costs.”

Parked cars along Edinger Avenue at Mile Square Park in Fountain Valley on Tuesday.

(Don Leach / Staff Photographer)

Discussion concerned the street parking available on the perimeter of the park, which is surrounded by Brookhurst Street, Edinger Avenue, Euclid Street and Warner Avenue.

The implementation of a pay-to-park system could bring about a public safety benefit and provide for more revenue, city officials said. It could be introduced by an ordinance of the City Council, subject to a local referendum.

“I’ve gotten so many complaints from residents who live in that area about people, especially in RVs, parking long-term and then leaving trash and other items … behind,” Grandis said. “It’s been a real problem.

“I went by the other day. I counted eight RVs. I use Euclid a lot. It is extremely dangerous on a busy weekend when you’re driving down Euclid and people are going really slow with their hazards on because they’re waiting for a spot, or they’re trying to parallel park on Euclid or get out of a tight parking spot. For me, the biggest issue is the safety issue, even more than a revenue issue.”

Runners exercise along the perimeter of Mile Square Park on Tuesday in Fountain Valley.

(Don Leach / Staff Photographer)

Police Chief Matthew Sheppard said the parking of commercial and recreational vehicles has been an issue, noting the municipal code allows for parking enforcement only between the hours of 2 and 6 a.m.

“The safety concerns that I see is from the large vehicles, the over-sized vehicles that are parking on the roadway,” Sheppard said. “It limits visibility for the departure [from] the curb line, and that can be from a vehicle, a bicycle or a pedestrian. You just can’t see past those, so there’s a little bit of an expectation that there should be a vehicle approaching, but if you’re not perceiving that, you could miss it. You could enter the roadway and be involved in a collision.”

Sightlines around large vehicles were not an associated factor in injury and fatality collisions in the past couple of years, Sheppard added.

During the session a resident expressed a concern that if paid parking was established along the outskirts of the park, it would drive people who normally use the street parking to park their vehicles on the interior. The speaker suggested that parking within Fountain Valley Sports Park is already congested.

Visitors of Mile Square Park exercise alongside a busy city street on Tuesday in Fountain Valley.

(Don Leach / Staff Photographer)

Councilwoman Kim Constantine opposed a fee-based parking program from the jump.

“Mile Square Park is beloved,” she said. “It’s used a lot by people, and we don’t have a parking problem around there that I know of. … People are hurting financially. This is just not the right thing to do.”