Council waves off school's parking request

FORT MADISON – With a $36 million construction project happening in the middle of town there is going to be some parking problems.
We have a parking problem.
The Fort Madison City Council took up the issue Tuesday night after Fort Madison Community School District Superintendent Dr. Erin Slater sent the city a request to have a 2-hour parking restriction lifted to allow students to park along side streets including 21^st Street, as well as Avenue B on the campus’ west side.
Darrell Davolt, a property owner just west side of the school, said residents along Avenue B and 21^st Street are having trouble getting in and out of driveways and getting down streets as students park cars along those streets.
The construction has temporarily eliminated parking on the east side of the school between the school and the tennis courts. There is still parking on the south side of the school and southeast of Richmond Stadium.
Davolt asked the council for patience and diligence.
“I’m asking you not to make a decision tonight. Table this and go talk to those residents, I will go with you,” Davolt said.
But the council pushed back saying construction has been ongoing for more than a year and asked why is the situation turned bad suddenly.
The new construction will provide room to bring seventh and eighth graders to the campus starting with the fall 2024 school year. At that point, construction at the Fort Madison Middle School will also be complete and Prek- 6^th grade will be educated at that campus. This will allow the shuttering of Richardson and Lincoln elementary schools.
“There’s what - eight months of construction left? I’m just not understanding why it’s a problem all of a sudden,” said Councilman Rusty Andrews.
Davolt suggested the city look into a church on the turn at Avenue A for possible student parking in the interim or possibly using the library for parking.
Sara Clendineng, the Fort Madison Public Library director, stood against using the library’s parking lot at the corner of 20^th and Avenue E.
“I have a concern, and I understand that we need to be neighborly, but I have concerns that if it’s significantly enforced in the short term, we’re going to see increased use of high schoolers using the parking lot. I’m not sure how you mitigate that to provide parking lot access for library patrons vs. high school students,” Clendineng said,
“And if they learn they can do that, even once this construction is completed, they might continue to park there and you create an on-going program to solve a short-term problem.”
Andrews said the back parking lot will hold more than 100 spaces and its scheduled to be paved in the next few weeks.
“I don’t think anyone would permanently make the library a parking choice,” he said.
Clendening said students are already using the parking lot.
The issue in front of the council was to lift the temporary two-hour restriction on parking.. Mayor Mohrfeld said the two-hour limitation doesn’t fix the problem but if they leave it at is the burden of the enforcement will fall on the police.
The motion to lift the two-hour restriction on parking was defeated 5-1 so the restriction stayed in place with Councilwoman Donna Amandus voting to lift the two-hour ban.