The Belgrade City Council held a workshop on August 10, 2026, to discuss proposed amendments to the city's parking ordinance and to consider a continuance of an impact fee study update. The meeting began with the pledge of allegiance, roll call (Councilmember Aaron Bell was absent and excused), and then moved into discussion items.
I'm gonna make it short as possible. All right. Thank everybody for coming out tonight. I'll call to order our Bill of Great City Council workshop meeting, and will you please rise and follow me in the pledge? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands on nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Roll call, please. Here. Michael Mees. Here. Christine Manicucci. Here. Renee Mademoisare. Aaron Bell is absent. Absent. Have a seek a motion to excuse Councilmember Bell. So moved. Second. Moved by Deputy Mayor Mademo, second by Council Member McGee. Is there any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. It passes. All right. Up on the discussion agenda, we have discussed proposed parking ordinance amendments. Chief, are you kicking this one off? I am. Good evening, Council Mayor. Dustin Lenton, police chief. I was asked at the urging of city administration and the council to take a look at our current parking ordinance, especially as it pertains to some of our downtown event parking. In your packets, you should have some suggested language changes. During the process of evaluating that, we also evaluated a couple of other things that are kind of a a little bit tenuous for us in the parking enforcement world. Basically, the new amendment to the uh special event parking for downtown, you know, parades, um Wednesday night, music Wednesday nights. Um currently we're trying to give three days notice, which causes confusion to business goers downtown. Um what was suggested and what I actually I like, uh Neil agrees Murph is is in the same boat as us, is that we just provide 12 hours notice for event parking downtown. And then by having that codified in in the ordinance, it'll give us some teeth if we need to relocate or tow vehicles. Um that way I think 12 hours is probably more than enough time to go ahead put out notice, then and like in the case of fall festival the next morning. If we have the parade route that we need to clear, it'll give us the authority to go ahead and do that. With that, um I also did add some language that exempts any sort of life safety emergencies, so notwithstanding any posting periods, that if there is any sort of declared life safety emergency by myself or city administration that we have the ability to tow without notice. So then I've also suggested that we change a few other things that have kind of become a headache. One of which is the licensed and operable vehicle requirement, which is noted in other sections of city code. Um but this wraps it all back under parking, which is a civil violation, which gives us a little bit more, a little bit more teeth, a little bit more accessibility and enforcement. Um actually very common and frequent headaches that we run into, and I'll just throw out a few examples, but let's say that there is a unlicensed snowmobile trailer sitting on the side of the road. It's got a flat tire, or in some cases, no tire. Uh, it's both licensed and inoperable. There's no VIN stamped on it. Sometimes we deal with homemade trailers. We have no way of knowing who owns it. We can't ticket it because we can't trace it back to an owner. We'll tag it as abandoned, let the five-day process run.