St. Joseph City Commissioners have approved a newly updated downtown paid parking plan for 2026.
After the controversial rollout of paid parking last year and the program’s suspension, the city’s parking subgroup spent the following months drafting a new proposal. It’s greatly scaled back, with the number of paid spaces reduced from more than 800 to fewer than 200 and all on-street.
Commissioners officially considered the plan Monday night. Commissioner Michael Sarola opposed it, saying he doesn’t sense buy-in from stakeholders.
“I just don’t feel comfortable playing with the livelihood of the restaurateurs and merchants while we try to right-size this program because I can see right now — I believe and that’s all I have to vote — there are things in this plan that are going to fail,” Sarola said.
Sarola also suggested parking along Lake Boulevard be paid and not limited to three hours, questioned whether there would be adequate free parking for the 600-plus downtown business employees, and called for an annual pass option. He said while he supports paid parking as a concept, this wasn’t the right plan.
Commissioner Lisa Vetne was also opposed to the proposal due to major construction projects about to get started in the city, like the reconstruction of Main Street next year. But Commissioner Michael Fernandez supported the plan, saying it will help the city better manage traffic and generate revenue for downtown improvements. He added it can be changed as commissioners see a need.
“I believe that we can do more than one thing at a time,” Fernandez said. “I think that we’ve seen a lot of stagnation, and so there’s certainly concerns and ‘what if, what if,’ but if we never do the things that are necessary to develop ourselves, we will just simply never develop.”
When Fernandez proposed a motion to approve the proposal, Commissioner Tess Ulrey suggested it be amended to instruct the parking subgroup to study the concept of an annual pass. That language was added. Mayor Brook Thomas also supported exploring the idea.
The proposal was then approved with Sarola and Vetne voting no. Public comment on the plan was largely negative.
