Ravenstahl vetoes parking tax freeze

It looks like Pittsburgh’s parking tax may be lowered after all.

Last week, Mayor Luke… It looks like Pittsburgh’s parking tax may be lowered after all.

Last week, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl vetoed City Council’s bill to freeze the parking tax at 45 percent for next year instead of decreasing it to 40 percent, as mandated by state Act 222.

The council voted 8-0 earlier in the month to freeze the tax because they said the city parking garages had not lowered their prices and a further decrease wouldn’t help Pittsburgh’s citizens.

If a lot wants to charge $10 an hour on its price at a 45 percent tax, the customer would have to pay $14.50.

After this year, the customer should only have to pay $14 in this example.

Last year, the Pittsburgh Parking Authority garages did not lower their rates; instead, they offered a “Free Parking Program” for busy times Downtown on Valentine’s Day, the day after Thanksgiving and the five Saturdays between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

However, the mayor’s office said that the issue isn’t with the Parking Authority – it’s with the privately owned operators.

“The Parking Authority garages are about 40 percent lower than the private operators,” Alecia Sirk, spokeswoman for Ravenstahl, said.

Even so, Pittsburgh Parking Authority Board Chairman Pat Ford said that as far as the Parking Authority is concerned, the public will reap the benefits of this cut.

No definite plans have been made yet as to how this will happen, but Ford said that options such as the “Free Parking Program” would be possible.

In the mayor’s letter to City Council last week, Ravenstahl said that he will work with the Parking Authority to give some of the cuts benefits to the public.

“I am directing the Pittsburgh Parking Authority to ensure that some portion of the 5 percent tax reduction scheduled for 2008 benefits the parking public, as the Free Parking Program did in 2007,” he said in the letter.

“I call on Pittsburgh’s private parking operators to do the same.”

However, some members of City Council believe Ravenstahl isn’t lowering the tax to benefit the public.

“The state act said we have to reduce the parking tax,” city councilman Jim Motznik said. “The reason [the mayor] is vetoing it is because the state senators have threatened that if the parking tax isn’t reduced they’ll take us to court and remove state funding, which is about $50 million.”

Motznik also doesn’t believe that any real cuts will come because of the mayor’s veto.

“Unfortunately it’s supply and demand,” Motznik said. “I’m sure the Pittsburgh Parking Authority, which has a board that’s controlled by the mayor, will offer free holiday parking like they normally do, and that’s their [way of] lowering some parking rates.

“The other problem is that privately owned garages and lots won’t lower their rates at all because of supply and demand.”

Motznik was also worried by the loss of revenue the city would sustain by lowering the tax, but Sirk said that the approximately $5 million of revenue that will be lost if the parking tax goes to 40 percent will not have a negative effect on the city.

“It’s a loss of tax revenue, but the 2008 budget accounts for that loss, so it’s not like we’re in shock now,” she said.

She also said that Ravenstahl is currently in negotiations with the state legislature and that this is just one piece of the bigger puzzle.

“Please accept this veto in the cooperative spirit in which it is offered,” Ravenstahl said in his letter to the council.

“We are on the right track to financial recovery.”