Marshall increases parking citation fees, continues to explore options for more parking

MARSHALL - The town of Marshall is increasing its downtown parking ticket fees in a move to bring fees closer to those of its neighboring town, Mars Hill.

The town of Marshall stipulates a maximum of two hours parking from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday in the downtown area.

The parking citation fees were $15, but the Marshall Town Board unanimously voted to raise the fees to $35 in its March 18 meeting.

Town Administrator Forrest Gilliam said the fee rate was something of a timely matter.

"The fee is the only thing that is kind of a timely matter to address, just because it's near time to order citation letters," Gilliam said. "It's not the end of the world to have to reorder them, but you can get them the right way, if you all want to do that, because I've heard several times before that it's not at the level compared to other towns."

According to research from board member Aileen Payne, the town of Mars Hill's fee rate is $35.

But Payne and other board members said they felt Marshall's parking situation was a bit more complicated, as the presence of a Marshall Housing Authority-owned unit and the downtown courthouse created increased traffic.

"No businesses and no employees park on Mars Hill's (Main) Street," Payne said. "It needs to be moved down from two-hour parking, because the court's back down here, and there's a dentist office down there, there's Star Diner, there's Natural Foods that has a business there. So, that whole side down through there is parking on the street.

"And we're not doing anything, but yet we're going to write a ticket for somebody that parks on the street that lives up here in these areas. So, you've got to go all the way or not at all."

While the fee price was the most timely of the parking discussion topics, the number of town-reserved spaces, as well as the question of whether to extend two-hour zones anywhere and the issue of ADA parking spaces were also identified as talking points for the board.

"Handicap parking statute in North Carolina is if someone has a placard, basically time won't apply to them," Gilliam said. "So, for that reason, there's not an ADA requirement that there be — we have them — but there's not a requirement that we have any extra spaces. We should try to preserve them where we have them and get ramps, and have them on both sides of the road if somebody has a lift that is on a different side of the vehicle.

"This way, there could be someone with that placard who could park somewhere. Even if you made it a two-hour lot, they could park there."

When asked by Mayor Aaron Haynie how many parking spots are rented by the town, Gilliam said the town reserves 12 spots monthly.

Gilliam said the town will reassess its private lot, located adjacent to the town fire department, in its upcoming 2024-25 budget deliberations.

Payne said she felt the town should enforce a two-hour parking maximum throughout its downtown area, including along Baileys Branch Road.

"Joel's business (Zuma Coffee) is there. The (Old Marshall) Jail is there," Payne said. "As are his employees."

According to Marshall Police Chief Mike Boone, the town issued 52 traffic/parking citations in 2023.

Board member Christiaan Ramsey wondered what percentage of those citations were due to a violation of the two-hour parking maximum.

"Most of them are for violating the two-hour parking," Boone said.

Boone and Gilliam said the downtown parking can be "confusing," as there are spots where the two-hour maximum is enforced, and other zones where the two-hour maximum "skips."

Payne motioned the town shore up those inconsistencies by extending the two-hour maximum along all street sides, except for ADA-accessible and loading zones. The motion was seconded by Ponder Smith and passed unanimously.

"It's not fair that people have parking spaces on the street, and other people don't have parking places," Payne said.

The parking/citation fee increase will be effective April 1.

Marshall Town Board's next meeting is April 15 at Town Hall, 180 S. Main St.

Johnny Casey has covered Madison County for The Citizen Times and The News-Record & Sentinel for three years. He earned a first-place award in beat news reporting in the 2023 North Carolina Press Association awards. He can be reached at 828-210-6074 or jcasey@citizentimes.com.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Marshall Town Board increases parking citation fees to $35