The city is subsidizing its parking division, but it shouldn’t be that way.
By Noah Bookstein
Original Air Date: September 1, 2026
Host: The City of Sarasota is subsidizing its parking division, but it shouldn’t be that way. After it took back expanded paid parking, a workshop yesterday gave indications where the city might be headed. Noah Bookstein reports.
Noah Bookstein: The City of Sarasota held a special workshop on Monday to discuss parking. A do-over of sorts after last week’s open house saw some attendees walking out in frustration mid-meeting. At that earlier session, attendees expecting to weigh in on the city’s long-running parking problems instead sat through a presentation from Planning Director Steve Cover and city staff. There was no live public comment—feedback was collected only on written cards—and the meeting was not recorded.
Photo: City of Sarasota
This time was different. City officials scheduled a workshop, this one on the record, and—in a last-minute reversal—the city commission voted four to one to allow residents and business owners to speak live, with Mayor Debbie Trice dissenting for procedural reasons.
Before commissioners heard from residents, they heard from staff, and the message was blunt. Whatever Sarasotans want, free parking isn’t actually free, they said. City Manager Karie Friling, who marked three months in the job at the meeting, spoke about that reality.
Karie Friling: There is no such thing as free parking. Parking garages have to be built and maintained. Streets and parking spaces have to be maintained. Technology and enforcement and personnel and operations all have a cost attributed to them. If the person using a parking space does not pay for those costs, the costs do not disappear; they are simply paid from another source. Every dollar general fund support directed to one service is another dollar that cannot be directed somewhere else.
NB: Planning Director Steve Cover compared free parking to giving away other city services for nothing.
Steve Cover: Free parking is comparable to the Bobby Jones Golf Course allowing everybody to play golf for free. Free parking is comparable to the utilities department giving everybody free water. Free parking is also like giving away free tickets to all the shows at the Van Wezel.
Parking kiosk at State Street Garage
NB: Staff said over 80% of the people using downtown and St. Armands garages are visitors, not Sarasota residents, and the city is staring down a million-dollar-plus capital improvement bill next year alone, driven heavily by elevator replacements at the State Street garage.
Once the floor opened for public comment, residents and business owners spoke. Business owners are concerned that developments outside the city limits with free parking built in, such as UTC, are putting downtown Sarasota businesses at a disadvantage. Cover acknowledged the complaint.
SC: One of the things that we’ve heard from the public is that the requirement to pay for parking is viewed as a major deterrent for customers, and it creates a barrier that discourages customers, reduces foot traffic and negatively impacts the competitiveness of downtown small businesses against free parking alternatives like UTC.
NB: Resident and business owner Katherine Hermes argued that parking enforcement actions often kill the vibe.
Katherine Hermes: Think about the last time you came out of dinner and on your windscreen was a ticket. That killed your whole dinner experience. Everybody hates getting parking tickets.
NB: John Harshman, who is running for city commission, pushed for a joint task force of citizens and staff to hammer out a solution.
John Harshman: Create a task force with citizens that understand business, understand finance and understand parking, and put some staff members on it because, at the end of the day, we have to have agreement with staff and the citizens and you all in order for this all to work. We can’t be butting heads, which is what we seem to be doing a lot of. Have a task force. Have 10 citizens, three staff people. Give them 45 days to come up with some recommendations for you.
NB: Fellow city commission candidate Flo Entler pitched privatization. She laid out three options: sell the city’s garages, lease them to a private operator or hand daily operations to a management company—the same model the city already uses at the Bobby Jones Golf Course.
Palm Avenue garage
Flo Entler: In 1942, the city installed the first meters on Main Street—160 meters. They were removed shortly after because the merchants complained. So we’ve been doing this dance for over 80 years. Operating a city garage through a private management company involves contracting daily operations to a specialized third party. After speaking with some city staff, hiring a management company, as we did with Bobby Jones, seems to be the better option.
NB: Martin Hyde, who is running for state senate, called for the whole system to be bid out to a private operator and doubted the numbers staff provided.
Martin Hyde: Free parking is not, as the planning director said rather bizarrely just now, like asking for free water, golf or shows at the Van Wezel, as they have direct costs to cover. The presentation was full of snapshot statistics. If you had listened to me five months ago when I told you very simply, $0.50 an hour increase from $1.50 to $2 on current hours would have avoided all of this. We can’t privatize public safety, but we can privatize parking with stipulations. Staff doesn’t want it, but where’s the harm in bidding it out?
NB: Hyde argued privatizing and bidding out the system could swing the parking budget from a deficit to a profit, including from a franchise fee. He says a private operator would pay the city just for the contract. Phillip Deveau, the interim parking general manager, warned against privatization.
Phillip Deveau: The thing is, once you privatize your parking garages, then the vendor can decide to choose whatever rate they want to charge. With the current private lots being at $4 to $18 an hour, you can figure that, if we privatize our parking garages, it’s not going to be $1 or $1.50 anymore. It’s going to be way above that.
St. Armands garage
NB: Parking enforcement was once the responsibility of the police department before it was reorganized under the planning department, and some—including Flo Entler—think it would be a good idea for parking to return to the police.
FE: Parking enforcement was mentioned before about being under the police department. I think this would be good, especially if Amendment 3 passes, because the police department will probably be protected.
NB: In the end, commissioners made no final decision. City Manager Friling recommended holding off on any long-term fix until after election day, citing possible funding cuts from the property tax referendum. Mayor Debbie Trice, who is due to leave office, was also concerned about the prospect of funding cuts.
Debbie Trice: I will be out of office November 6. What I’m actually personally focusing on is educating the public on Amendment 3, because people will be voting on that on November 3 or earlier, and the results of that vote will severely impact whether or not we can pay for parking out of the general fund.
State Street garage
NB: How the city funds parking may come down to how voters decide to fund everything else once the ballots are counted, and to when city officials know where they stand under the shadow of the property tax referendum.
Commissioners agreed with City Manager Karie Friling’s recommendation to keep the current scaled-back enforcement hours in place through November, fix confusing signage in the meantime and revisit the whole debate—rates, meters, privatization and all—after the midterms.
KF: Keep the current suspension of the extended parking enforcement hours in place through November 3—probably through the end of the month of November. Following the referendum, then allow me and staff some time to evaluate where we’re at because we’ll know the outcome. In a blink of an eye, November 3 is going to be here, and there are a million other things we’re working on too that are going to be impacted by that vote on November 3, not just parking.
NB: Reporting for WSLR News, Noah Bookstein.
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