The parking issue in San Luis Obispo is not about parking; this is about money.

I wish Big Sky Restaurant was still here.

I wish Marshalls Jewelry, Beverly's Fabrics, Betty's Fabrics, Ross, Mo's BBQ, Johnsons Gallery, or Johnsons for Children, or ... .

This is about money and the city staff being irresponsible with competing budgets.

This is about the city budget.

Question: Why do Home Depot, Whole Foods, Costco, et al, let us park for free? What do they know that the city of SLO doesn't seem to understand?

Answer: The longer a person shops, the more they spend. The more they worry about getting to their car, the less focused on shopping they are and the less they spend.

Home Depot knows charging $4 an hour is way less income than someone spending $50 because they finally found what they were looking for. Let them shop.

Did anyone at the city do that calculation?

The city should think about the shopper and then think about sales tax and business license tax.

These are two of your top revenue streams and these taxes are driven by retail sales. Your retail sales go down and then your sales tax and your business license tax goes down.

The pandemic came. People had to stay home. Retail stores, restaurants, movie theaters lost sales and the city's sales tax revenue dropped, and consumers found another way to get their needs met: online.

Amazon charges sales tax and includes the city of SLO's portion, but it's in the minority. Most online retailers charge the state's sales tax rate, and the city loses.

Doubling the parking rates and charging for weekends and holidays and after 6 p.m. is just greedy and mean. It penalizes the shoppers we want to attract to downtown. Why are you doing that? If you need money, do a better job of budgeting. Cut salaries at the top.

Retail sales, restaurants, movie theaters, coffee shops are "downtown." If they're gone, so is downtown.

They were just coming back to financial health when the city's parking department declared war on the consumers.

You have numbers that show more people are coming back in and shopping, and you used those numbers to formulate a plan to squeeze out more money from parking.

SLO's downtown is right on that brink. Consumers are too angry now to want to "support" the downtown. You are taking too much.

Remember when businesses figured out they could attract customers by taking advantage of free parking on Sundays and holidays? SLO businesses decided to open on Sundays and holidays. Suddenly more people were parking and shopping and eating lunch and going to the movies, unfettered by parking fees.

Remember when the city parking department saw this and suddenly begin charging for parking on Sundays?

Remember when the churches all had a fit and gathered together and demanded a return to free parking during the church morning times?

I do. I was working for a downtown business that got socked in the gut by lost sales on Sundays the minute parking was no longer free.

Ultimately, the city will lose in the parking wars.

As downtown businesses lose revenue, as shoppers stop coming downtown because they have had enough of the city's parking greed, the city will lose sales tax revenue and business license tax.

And we will all lose because our society craves social interaction, dinner and a movie, a new dress or pair of jeans.

The costs of the new parking structure?

The city planned it for 20 years and didn't set aside anything? Why do we have to pay for the city's poor budget planning?

Just because you can raise taxes and increase parking fees doesn't mean you, in all good conscience, should do so.

Tighten your own belt. Do what you are making business owners do.

Give back Sundays, holidays, and time after 6 p.m., and then cut the fee increase in half. Δ

Barbara-Jo Osborne from Morro Bay is a business owner who supports SLOREP. Send comments for publication to [email protected].