Durango-area residents are familiar with the downtown parking regimen: Keep meters plugged during normal business hours or face the city’s wrath – a yellow envelope tucked under the windshield wiper concealing a $25 parking ticket.
Yet, not everyone is held to the same rules when it comes to parking in downtown Durango. City councilors and dozens of city employees are exempt from having to pay to park downtown.
Hundreds more employees have mid-level privileges that give them some free parking options, but not on the same level as city councilors and department heads.
The exemptions are noteworthy anytime, but especially now as the city considers expanding the parking meter program to include evenings and weekends.
Two hundred and sixty-six city employees and officials have parking permits, said Sarah Hill, Durango Transportation director. In other words, more than half of the city’s approximately 400 employees have parking privileges not afforded to the general public.
The city was unaware of how many employee permits it had issued until The Durango Herald began inquiring earlier this year.
Many residents when informed of the free parking privileges afforded to city employees were of the opinion that city employees and officials should be held to the same standards as the general public, including downtown workers.
City representatives said their permits help them conduct official business downtown. It’s not like they take advantage of the free parking passes all the time, they say.
The permits are considered a perk of the job, said city spokesman Tom Sluis, who had his own permit and said his staff in the public information division also have their own permits. He said city staff members and officials regularly attend meetings downtown and the permits accommodate their parking needs.
The permits are also a perk for councilors and the mayor, who are compensated $867 per month, or $10,404 per year, and $13,404 per year, respectively, which is not a lot of money for the time and work they put in, he said.
Neither Sluis, City Manager José Madrigal nor Transportation Director Sarah Hill had immediate answers as to why city officials and workers are exempt from meter fees when members of the public, including private sector employees who work downtown, must pay.
Madrigal said the parking permits are small stickers placed on the lower windshield on the passenger side of a vehicle. They come in two colors, orange (or mustard-yellow) and purple.
Who parks for free
Thirty city employees have orange parking permits that allow them to park in any city lot or metered parking spot, except for 30-minute metered spots, without having to pay. The employees include:
- Jessika Buell, mayor
- Melissa Youssef, city councilor
- Olivier Bosmans, city councilor
- Gilda Yazzie, city councilor
- Dave Woodruff, city councilor
- Justin Carlton, information technology director
- Tony Vicari, Durango-La Plata County aviation director
- Sarah Hill, transportation director
- Joey Medina, public works operations manager
- Erin Hyder, assistant city manager
- Bob Brammer, assistant city manager
- José Madrigal, city manager
- Tom Sluis, city spokesman
- Dondi Osborne, former associate judge for the city
- Faye Harmer, city clerk
- Scott Shine, community development director
- Luke Alvey-Henderson, Durango Public Library director
- Zeta Fail, former Durango Emergency Communications Center director
- Denise Telck, spokeswoman
- Nick Johnson, spokesman
- Joshua Wolfe, photography, community and media engagement
- Bonnie Kling, human resources director
- Mark Morgan, city attorney
- Devon Schmidt, chief financial officer
- Sarah Humphrey, former interim parks and recreation director
- Kelly Schmidt, parks and recreation director
- Jim Martin, assistant city attorney
- Matthew Margeson, municipal court judge
- Mike French, prosperity officer
- Bob Lowry, interim public works director
Purple permits, which are given to rank and file staff members, allow fewer privileges compared to the orange stickers, which are given to directors, assistant directors and city councilors, according to the 2024 permit applications.
As of last month, the city had issued 225 purple permits to staff members and 41 orange permits to higher-level city employees, Hill said.
A records request filed by the Herald identified 30 city employees and officials who have orange permits. That is 11 fewer than the number of orange permits issued. Hill said some orange permit holders may have been given multiple stickers because they have more than one vehicle; permits are not valid for family members of permit holders.
Orange permits are valid at municipal parking lots and all metered parking spaces except for 30-minute meters, Hill said. Purple permits allow free parking in municipal lots and at metered parking spots in front of certain city buildings, but not at 30-minute meters.
Both permits are also valid at the Durango Transit Center, where the general public must pay $5 per day or $30 per month for the right to park, Hill said.
Purple permit perks
Purple permit holders can park at designated meters in front of City Hall, 949 East Second Ave.; Durango Police Department’s downtown station, 990 East Second Ave.; the Carnegie Building, 1188 East Second Ave.; and temporarily, the Community Development and Engineering departments in the former Big Picture High School building at 215 E. 12th St.
In at least one instance, a permit was given to a non-city employee. Madrigal said he recently learned Jack Llewellyn, former executive director of the Durango Chamber of Commerce, had been issued an orange permit, even though the Chamber of Commerce is separate from the city.
Madrigal said he didn’t realize the chamber director was entitled to free parking until Lewellyn returned his orange permit before retiring and taking a new job.
Madrigal, who has an orange director permit, said he doesn’t know the reason behind the city’s permitting program that exempts officials from most metered parking fees. The policy was in place before he arrived in September 2020.
Hill, who has been with the city since 2012 when she was hired as a part-time bus driver, and was appointed to transportation director in July 2021, also didn’t know the origins of the free parking program. The policy was implemented 15 years ago or more based on dated documents she was able to retrieve. She said the permit policy appears to have been made at the administrative level, meaning it likely didn’t require a vote of approval by City Council.
Permits are considered property of the city of Durango, and employees and officials are expected to turn in their permits if they change positions or are no longer employed by the city, according to the applications.
Some residents and workers in Durango appeared amenable to city employees receiving free parking as long as they are being used while on the job and have a legitimate reason to be parked at meters.
But they also felt like residents are getting the raw end of the stick when it comes to their own parking needs, and the city’s exploration into whether it should begin charging for evening and weekend parking is a threat to the one parking luxury residents enjoy.
Durango resident Ryan Davis popped out of a meeting last month to pay his meter on Narrow Gauge Avenue. He said it was the second time that day he had to step away to feed his meter.
He seemed deferential to city employees parking for free so long as they are conducting city business downtown, “but otherwise, if they’re out on personal time, I think they should be paying for parking just like the general public.”
Josh Muzzy, owner of True Blue Landscaping, was parked on Narrow Gauge Avenue next to the U.S. Postal Service on Friday with his accountant, whom he was treating to lunch.
Frustrated, he swiped his credit card to pay a parking meter.
“I’m about to take a bat to this thing,” he said.
City employees and officials absolutely should have free parking, he said, adding he works with the city to build parks. But something has to give for residents.
Durango resident Dan Murphy said if officials and staff members are parking downtown for work, it is probably fine if they park at a metered spot for free. But if they are on personal business, they should pay like the rest of the parking public.
Jenna Pietrowski, a hairstylist at Hair Fusion Salon & Spa on Main Avenue, said if city officials get free parking privileges, then so should residents and downtown workers.
She said it costs workers $8 to $10 a day to park downtown unless they want to park blocks away and walk to work in the wintertime.
Mayor Jessika Buell said she parks right beside City Hall when she attends City Council meetings, which are typically held at 5:30 p.m. the first and third Tuesdays of the month and are sometimes preceded by council study sessions or special meetings.
When she goes downtown for other things – say shopping or restaurant dining – she said she tends to park at the Transit Center parking lot.
She acknowledges having used her orange pass to park at meters in the past – saying she isn’t perfect.
Councilor Melissa Youssef appeared unaware of the city’s meter fee schedules that residents are all too familiar with.
During a discussion about the transportation department’s impending budget shortfall at an October budget retreat, Youssef asked if the city currently charges weekend fees. It doesn’t; the meters are enforced from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday.
“Free? All the time? OK. That’ll be interesting to explore,” Youssef said of free weekend parking.
Just because some employees and officials have parking permits does not mean they are parking in metered spaces frequently, Madrigal said. He takes advantage of his orange permit once or twice every several months when the municipal parking lot outside City Hall is full.
He said he typically walks from his office to other downtown locations instead of driving, and if an employee or an official parks in a nonvalid 30-minute space, he or she is expected to pay the meter fee out of pocket.
Sluis said he was surprised to learn how many employees hold active parking permits. He expected the number to be closer to a dozen or so, not more than half of the city’s workforce.
He stressed that purple permit holders are largely limited to parking in municipal lots, and their metered parking is only validated at select meters outside city buildings on East Second Avenue.
On Friday, he said he returned his permit to the city because he doesn’t use it often enough. He asked his public information staff members to exchange their orange permits for purple permits because there isn’t as much need for them as he’d anticipated.
Hill said the city’s permit policy has been in place for so long that it has become commonplace, and nobody has thought to reevaluate its appropriateness. Now, the city is considering doing just that.
“This is a good time to review the policy because we have requested that City Council direct some of the lodgers tax funding to help with a parking program for all downtown employees in 2025,” she said. “This could be part of the full permitted parking overhaul that we’re looking at next year.”
cburney@durangoherald.com
