Mayor bares plan to revive pay-parking

By Aileen P. Refuerzo

BAGUIO CITY – Mayor Mauricio Domogan urged the city council last Monday to come up with a new ordinance to regulate parking at the Central Business District.

The mayor said that in the absence of an ordinance to control parking, the city will continue to suffer disorder because of indiscriminate parking along roads especially Session Road and other main thoroughfares.

He said the city has had no existing street parking regulatory measure since the repeal of Ordinance No. 003-2000, the pay-parking ordinance of the city, in November 2006.

“Let us try to craft a new ordinance to put back order on our streets,” the mayor said.

The city council earlier approved Ordinance No. 33 series of 2006 that repealed the pay-parking ordinance and rescinded the memorandum of agreement that authorized the much-ballyhooed operation of Jadewell Systems Parking Corporation in 2001. This stopped the operation of the controversial parking firm which was accused of violating the terms and conditions of the contract.

At present, the city is awaiting the final decision of the Supreme Court on the case questioning the constitutionality of the pay-parking firm’s operation in the city.

A bevy of court cases have arisen since the main case was filed and most of these remained unresolved up to the present.

The mayor also urged the city council to support his plan to revive the operation of the existing parking lot near the Ganza Restaurant and to establish new parking facilities at the Melvin Jones grounds and the lot near the Solibao Restaurant all at Burnham Park to address the growing need for parking spaces in the city and at the same time generate revenue for city coffers.

“We badly need parking space at the central business district so we have to operationalize these prospective parking facilities at the earliest time,” he said.

The mayor said the plan is to bid out the said parking spaces to private investors to put up and operate multi-story parking structures in said areas.

In the case of the Ganza parking lot which is covered by a contract with Jadewell, the mayor said he intends to talk with Jadewell owner Rogelio Tan for a possible compromise on the reopening of the Ganza parking lot.

In his weekly press briefing last Wednesday, the mayor cited the possibility of Jadewell agreeing to bid out the facility with it participating in the bidding. He said it may happen that in the event that Jadewell loses the chance to reoperate the facility, then the city may reimburse the fund it infused in developing the facility.

The mayor also bared reception to an out-of-court settlement of the cases now pending before the Supreme Court between the city and the Jadewell but only if the terms would be beneficial to both parties.

Jadewell owner Rogelio Tan earlier offered an out-of-court settlement with the city government particularly on the resumption of its parking business at the Ganza place purportedly for the benefit of the more than 60 Jadewell employees displaced after the cessation of their operations.

Tan then said he is open to whatever terms the city may set for the settlement adding that his offer of settlement will apply to all cases he filed against the city government

He said his ultimate aim is to get repayment for the capital and other costs they invested for the business along with the income they would have generated had their operations not stopped.
The mayor said he is open to negotiations with Tan as “there is no substitute for a compromise settlement” but he said this will depend on the acceptability of the terms and conditions that will be presented by both parties.

The mayor said he will prioritize the preparation of the terms of reference for these parking projects to facilitate the bidding and implement the project.