Free metered parking

Chico City Council members approved a plan to provide free parking in metered downtown stalls on the next three Fridays in December as well as the Monday before Christmas, but that doesn’t mean vehicles will not be cited for other infractions.

As Police Chief Kirk Trostle explained during the panel’s meeting Tuesday evening, Dec. 3, the city’s parking-services specialists will still be enforcing other parking violations, including spending time in excess of what a particular spot allows.

The plan is to entice holiday shoppers into the region, and though it came before the council for the first time this year, parking-meter forgiveness isn’t new to Chico. While there is the potential for the city to lose as much as $17,000 in meter fees (only if no drivers feed the meters), the idea is that sales-tax generation would counter the losses. Plus, the latter goes directly to the general fund.