deValera Street Blues
By Christy Parker | Photo: Michael Hussey (YoughalOnline.com)
The complex issue of parking allocation for deValera Street residents at the area’s impending new car park brought heated exchanges during a highly-charged debate at November’s Town Council meeting. Mayor Olly Casey traded sharp criticism and invective with several councillors, most especially Cllr Dave Savage as the discussion sent blood pressures towards the stratosphere.
At one stage Mayor Casey accused Cllr Savage of ’sitting on the fence’ and ‘lacking the guts’ to support his convictions. Cllr Savage in turn described Mayor Casey as ‘peddling nonsense’ and ‘creating a mess on deValera Street’ while failing to heed the concerns of his own council’s executive.
The issue’s roots lie in a motion passed last September by the council voted to allocate 17 designated parking spaces, from a total of 37, to deValera Street resident permit holders (one per house) when the new car park opens on the laneway. A previous proposal simply to supply permits on a non-allocation basis was thus bypassed.
The council executive subsequently sought legal opinion as to whether the Motion could be legally implemented. Legal Counsel advised that implementing the Motion, could indeed prove unconstitutional on several grounds, not least ‘transfer of benefit and/or land’ of a publicly-funded property to private citizens. Town manager Patricia Power, the executive could not possibly implement it.
Mayor Casey, supported Cllr Burke, had circulated the meeting with written responses to that legal opinion’s reservations, while arguing too that legal opinion was foremost not binding and another barrister might submit alternative views. In that case, the matter could go before a court, but he wanted to avoid this outcome.
The letter argued that there was already ‘transfer of benefit’, through such hackney spaces, casual trading areas, trolley areas at supermarkets, etc. Particularly, for 17 years, Belmont, Upper Strand, had been a residents parking only zone.
Word War!
In the ensuing hour of verbal jousting, Town Clerk Liam Ryan argued that Belmont and other areas were roads and not car parks. Cllr Burke insisted that a section of the 1961 Traffic Act stipulated that public areas included car parks. He added that the council had the power to make laws for special circumstances. Mr. Ryan refuted this interpretation of the Act and said that businesses were allocated spaces on foot of capital charges and development levies. The Motion promoted ‘a perceived transfer of rights’ and amounted to the same thing (as ‘transfer of benefit and/or land’), he said.
Mayor Casey invoked health and safety concerns and said unless cars were fully removed from deValera Street and the thoroughfare made two-way, emergency services would be compromised. Cllr Burke drove on, as it were by adding that legally, ‘any person in authority who failed to act where a risk has been identified, could be rendered personally liable in the event of an accident.’ He said a ‘paper trail’ existed whereby the risk had been outlined and the ball was now in the manager’s court of the council wanted to avoid such a dire possibility.
The Town Manager repeated her assertion that she simply could not act against the advice of legal counsel and that doing so would, in any case, set an alarming precedent. ‘We might have to allocate private parking spaces to people very time we paint new double lines or demolish a corner,” she suggested. Cllr Burke insisted implementation was not being deemed “illegal’ by anyone.
Unreasonable
Cllr Barbara Murray said that allocating 17 spaces along with the future loss of eleven parking spaces on nearby North Main Street when parallel parking is introduced, would mean a net gain of only nine spaces at deValera Street. At €240,000, plus development costs of €150,000, they’d be very expensive parking slots! Mayor Casey asked her what price she put on a life. Ignoring that jibe, Cllr Murray said the residents were unrealistic if seeking 17 spaces and estimated half that would suffice, with most car owners away during daytime. She felt they were reasonable people and open to negotiation.
An exasperated Mr. Ryan again asked why the original proposal to allow permits, but not allocate special spaces, could not be implemented. He said they now had bizarre possibility of people not being able to park in a half empty public car park! Cllr Murray returned that the council has a duty to all of the town’s citizens, whose money funded the facility, not just a small section.
Cllr Revins said he was “sick and tired” of listening to Mayor Casey’s argument and that full and proper information had not been provided when the Motion was passed, which was why he had abstained.
‘Gutless
Cllr Savage had also abstained at that meeting and when Mayor Casey, far from discomforted by the swell of opposition, made reference to free car parking at his business premises i the Strand, Cllr Savage felt personally goaded. Pent up frustration was unleashed and he engaged in a very heated argument with the Mayor, accusing him of ignoring the fact development charges had been paid, of creating a mess in deValera Street with a car park that would remain unfinished due to his intransigence and of “railroading” his agenda through the council. “You’re ignoring your own executive,” he goaded. Mayor Casey responded that Cllr Savage hadn’t “the guts to stand up for what you believe in and never had.”
Cllr Savage felt the issue should always have been decided through discussion with the resident and sought consensus from the chamber to invite them to a meeting. This was subsequently rejected.
By now the discussion/argument had ran for 55 minutes. It was 9.30 and Standing Orders forbade discussion of the matter beyond that time. Any further comment would in itself be deemed illegal! The matter was deferred to December’s meeting. “That’ll give everyone a chance to take a break,” remarked Mayor Casey.
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