City moves to get parked vehicles off sidewalks

By their very definition, sidewalks and parking lots are not the same.
And Tuesday night’s meeting of the Eunice City Council marked a re-defining moment in what many have called a problem that has been growing in downtown Eunice for the last eight years.
Parking on the sidewalk is illegal and will be enforced by police in downtown Eunice.
Invoking the power of the downtown Historic District ordinance, council members stressed that warnings from the Eunice Police Department will be issued for scofflaws who continue to park on the sidewalks before actual citations are issued.
The continued use of public sidewalks as parking space has resulted in damage to the sidewalks, council members said.
“We have a situation existing in the historic district, mainly on 2nd Street, from West Laurel to Park Avenue, people parking on the sidewalks in that area,” said Ward 1 Councilman Roland Miller who championed the measure.
“It’s a high foot-traffic area. The sidewalks are not made to carry heavy-load vehicles like pick-up trucks, vehicles, cars. We’re having deterioration of the sidewalk. It’s cracking all along the perimeter. We’re having holes come up in it and this is an area that we’re proud of in the city of Eunice, that we’re trying to keep clean. We’re trying to keep it in a neat fashion at all times. If we have to start patching sidewalks, it’s going to look like most of our streets do.”
Miller proposed an amendment to the historic district ordinance that would prohibit parking of vehicles on the city sidewalks in downtown. However, Alderman-at-large Jack Burson said that there was already an ordinance in place to prohibit parking on the sidewalk.
“I’ve talked to the police chief, and we will have, on a daily basis, police checking 2nd Street,” said Miller. “I’ve been on 2nd Street, where vehicles have parked totally on the sidewalk, up against the sides of the buildings. And particularly, in one area you have vehicles as big as ‘dualies’ parked up on the sidewalk, totally up on the sidewalk not even in the street anymore. We just can’t have it. We’re going to start issuing tickets as early as tomorrow.”
Burson echoed Mr. Miller’s comments on the parking situation in downtown.
“All you got to do is walk to Ruby’s and you’re going to see a goodly section of the sidewalk, now broken and beginning to cave-in, to where it’s now going to fall off,” said Burson. “And it’s a very awkward position, right by a sewer main, or water main, and that’s the kind of damage that gets done. Because those sidewalks are not built to withstand that type of load.”
Burson also pointed out that the “handicap ramp” entry – which has been in place for disabled patrons from Walnut Avenue – saw sidewalk passage obstructed by recent, illegally parked vehicles.
Eunice Police Chief Ronald Dies spoke before the council on the matter of enforcement of sidewalk parking.
Dies said that the city ordinance included the prohibition of people who “stand or park” on the sidewalk. He said that the enforcement of the parking law would affect the farmer’s market vendors who set up on the sidewalks in downtown to sell fruits, vegetables and various other homemade goods. Dies said that he wanted a provision in the ordinance so that the farmer’s market vendors would not be in violation of the ordinance.
Council members debated whether or not the ordinance referred to the standing or parking of a vehicle on the sidewalk.
“I would read this language to say that ‘no person shall stand or park a vehicle’, standing a vehicle or parking it,”said Burson. “Standing, I guess, would be temporary while parking it would be going off and leaving it.”
Mayor Claud “Rusty” Moody, Jr. said that the city had contracted the services of a traffic engineer based out of Lafayette to gather data from the downtown area to assist with a solution to the problem of the “blue zones” in downtown.
The once-painted-red, former fire lanes were at one time illegal parking spaces with the exception of Fire Department vehicles.
The latest color proposed among city officials was black – which means nothing in the violation code colors but cannot be confused with the blue paint which often signifies handicap parking. City officials said that the traffic engineer should release his report and findings on the “blue zones” and hopefully clarify some downtown parking questions.