City hall tight-lipped about new pay-to-park rules

For the first time, the city of La Crosse has undertaken a controversial plan to charge to park on public streets in some parts of the city. The thinking is that charging people to park in highly congested areas around UW La Crosse and WTC will encourage those visitors to use public parking ramps, freeing up space on the street for those who live there. The signs outlining the new ordinance went up around WTC back in May and around UWL last month. So, how is it going so far? City Hall isn’t saying. WIZM News requested an interview with the city’s parking coordinator seeking to find out how many violations have been issued under the new parking rules, and whether the plan is actually working to reduce congestion. No comment is the official position. Despite the fact that we have a parking coordinator whose job it literally is to keep us informed of the rules, and how they are working. Why won’t they talk? Are they overwhelmed with all the objections to this new proposal, and don’t want to invite more criticism? Of course we know the truth will come out eventually. We can make public record requests to determine the number of citations issued. But they told us we needed these new rules. They need to stand up and own this thing. Give us the facts, so we can determine if these new rules are really what the city needed.