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OGDEN — The Ogden mayor is pressing pause on paid parking downtown. His decision came after a fiery city meeting last week during which the majority of residents strongly opposed the change.
At the most recent city council meeting, Mayor Ben Nadolski announced he's putting any parking changes downtown on pause. He said the city government learned a lot of valuable lessons through this situation.
Several business owners left last week's heated paid parking meeting frustrated about what was coming to their block. Salon owner Thomas Hardy went before the City Council and the mayor to ask them to reconsider the plans.
"Like pitchforks and fire," Hardy said about last week's meeting. "We want to work together with the mayor and the city."
The mayor responded with an apology.
"I'm sorry," Nadolski said. "I'm not comfortable pressing forward without having enough input."
Nadolski said he made the decision to delay the program after the response at last week's meeting.
"It's uncomfortable to get the kind of input that we did. But it's OK," he told KSL-TV.
Nadolski said the city hadn't heard from that group of business owners.
"We need to supplement the way that we've been doing outreach with some new ways to bring people around the table," he said.
The mayor said paid parking is still a possibility, but he's not discussing it until further notice. "I'm under pressure from some just to put a complete halt on it permanently. But I'm also hearing a lot of input that, 'What's taking so long? We have parking issues downtown,'" Nadolski said.
Hardy said he would like the city to amend parking costs for workers, as employee parking was a focused concern at last week's meeting.
"That's a real expense," Hardy said.
The mayor said he's committed to engaging the whole community on the parking issue when the time is right. Until then, parking in the historical district remains free.
"It's not great that people are upset," Nadolski said, "but it's really great that they're at the table now."
The parking situation will eventually be worked out, but there is no specific timeline for those conversations.
