BOWLING GREEN, OH (WTOL) - You could be paying more to park in downtown Bowling Green.
A proposal will be introduced at Monday's City Council meeting that doubles the cost at the meter.
Pete Dewood visits downtown Bowling Green a couple days a week.
"Grab a cup of coffee. I have a meditation group down the street," he said about what he does downtown.
He's not happy about a proposal to increase metered parking from 25 cents an hour to 50 cents an hour.
"It would keep me from driving down here. I live close. Everything's close down here so I'd walk anyhow," said Dewood.
While Dewood said that he'd still come downtown, Connie Miller of the Busy Thimble is worried that doubling the price of parking would keep her customers at bay.
"They're already frustrated with trying to find parking. To come to the stores downtown and to increase it, is not going to help, Miller said. "It's counterproductive to get people to come downtown."
Councilman Bruce Jeffers says 25 cents simply isn't enough to maintain the metered spots.
"Other than the lot of the east side of Main Street, we haven't repaved anything for about 15 years," he said.
Jeffers said that the city also needs the money to pay for two enforcement officers.
Jeffers said that this is just one option to get the conversation started, but these things do need to be paid for somehow.
"We want to make sure that our businesses are on board with this. We don't want them to be in a situation where people don't want to come downtown. I don't think this would do that, but we want to be cautious," he said.
Jeffers expects that a public committee meeting will be scheduled for folks to weigh in.
