As Snow Piles Up, a Crackdown on Sloppy Parking

Plus, First Effort to Block 2% Recreation Fee Fails, and Davis Mayor Proposes Election Changes.

The photos with story are not intended to show illegal parking. Instead, they illustrate the challenges that plowing crews face.

With snow piling up and spring still months away, parking problems are getting out of hand.

The problem appears to be mostly with out-of-town visitors, local officials and businesses say. Davis Mayor Al Tomson notes that the town’s main thoroughfare is sometimes constricted to a single lane on weekends because of people who park several feet away from roadside snowbanks.

Problems occur on side streets as well. Snowplow crews are continuing to work throughout the town to broaden roadways and clear visually obstructed corners, Tomson said, but they have been restricted by careless parking, sometimes making it impossible for plows to get through.

The heavy snows this month have kept plowing crews out working to catch up, even when it hasn’t snowed for a few days.

An orange cone alerts plows to avoid hitting a car buried under snow.

Tomson warned at the Davis Town Council meeting Wednesday that cars parked illegally anywhere in the city will be ticketed or towed. Towing will happen much faster on William Avenue, the main street running through the business district, Tomson said.

“When people are impeding traffic on William Avenue, we’re having them towed,” Tomson said.

Tomson has said in the past that he wants to expand law enforcement in Davis, a topic he revisited at the Town Council meeting Wednesday night. The mayor said he plans to speak with Tucker County Sheriff Jake Kopec about hiring an off-duty sheriff’s deputy to deal with problem vehicles.

Disrespectful tourists

Ron Tate, manager of the Big Belly Deli in Davis, said the problem is with tourists, not locals. Tate said he loves the tourists who are respectful. However, too many of them treat locals like they are “toothless, illiterate, redneck hillbillies.”

Those tourists are the ones who think they should be able to do anything just because they’re spending money in town, Tate said.

“They act like none of the rules or community standards apply to them,” Tate said. “That’s both in the summer and the winter, but it’s worse in the winter because of the snow.”

Sloppy parking appears to be less of an issue in Thomas, where the roads through the business district are wider than in Davis. Jody Flanagan, the mayor of Thomas, noted that snow removal is straining the city budget as workers clock substantial overtime to keep roads clear. “It’s been a tough one,” Flanagan said. “It hasn’t stopped snowing in three weeks.”

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Davis Mayor Aims to Stagger Council Terms

Davis Mayor Al Tomson said he wants to change the way local officials are elected.

Currently all elected town officials run for concurrent two-year terms. That raises the potential of heavy turnover in a single election, Tomson said, which could abruptly drain the council of experienced members and institutional memory.

Tomson said at a Town Council meeting on Wednesday that he would like to switch to four-year staggered terms.

Under the plan:

• The mayor and two other council members would be elected to two-year terms in 2025. Those seats would be up for election to four-year terms in 2027 and beyond.

• The recorder and three other members of the council would be elected to four-year terms in 2025 and beyond.

The town will hold a public meeting about the changes, Tomson said. If there are no objections, the changes can be adopted by the Town Council by simply adopting an ordinance. If anyone objects at the public meeting, the town would have to hold a referendum on the matter.

Judge Rejects Efforts to Block 2% Recreation Fee: More Legal Action Looms

The 2 percent recreation fee funds EMS.

Circuit Court Judge Hilary Bright rejected an effort to immediately halt enforcement of a controversial new 2 percent fee on recreation and entertainment, saying