At its earlier Sept. 16 meeting, the council had agreed to change the downtown limit on Kelly Avenue and Main, Mill and Miramontes streets from two to three hours - at the urging of the Half Moon Bay Chamber of Commerce and its Merchants Association.
But Ashcraft had reportedly not been in attendance at either of the two meetings held by the Merchants Association to decide the issue. So she produced a petition to the city with 45 signatures of downtown business owners in favor of keeping the limit at two hours.
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According to Mayor Dennis Coleman, the parking issue revealed a division in the interests of the types of downtown businesses - those attracting tourists want longer parking limits to allow people to wander Main Street, shop and eat, while those primarily serving local residents want a lot of turnover on the street.
"We are seeing a conflict between the customer profiles of the different businesses downtown," Mayor Dennis Coleman said.
"The chamber asked for the three hours and they are seeking to attract visitor service to Half Moon Bay, and the folks who would like the shorter parking look like the businesses that have a significant part of the business serving the residents."
"And former residents," interjected Council-woman Toni Taylor, "since one of the signers is the funeral parlor."
She was referring to Miller-Dutra Funeral Home owner Greg Miller's name on the petition.
Main Street Goldworks co-owner Patty Warshauer said the two-hour limit was important to maintain the right mix of visitor-serving and local-serving businesses downtown.
"As long as I've been on Main Street, we have wanted to keep a mixture of shops," she said. "I'm seeing the mix disappear. Please don't turn Main Street into a parking lot."
Oasis Natural Foods owner Frank Long said he was originally in support of the three-hour limit, but had changed his mind.
"But I've only been around for five months, not 60 years, so I have to rescind my support for that," he said.
Half Moon Bay Chamber President and CEO Charise McHugh, who brought the Merchants Association's message to the council at its Sept. 16 meeting, said she did not have a particular preference on the limit.
"I was simply the messenger," she said.
Councilman Jim Grady said the council hadn't done its due diligence in making the change.
"We didn't dot the i and make sure that we sent it back to the key stakeholders," he said. "We're always telling developers to get community buy-in, and this time we didn't check that box off ourselves."
"But we were told that we were hearing from the stakeholders," Coleman noted. "This is the no-good-deed-goes-unpunished thing."
The council directed Public Works Director Paul Nagengast to look into a comprehensive parking plan for downtown to decide if the city should have universal limits or more varied parking limits, depending on the businesses near the parking spot.
"We're going to need to be careful if we look at spot zoning like that," Councilwoman Deborah Ruddock said. "A lot of businesses on Main Street switch. It's been musical chairs for a number of years now."
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