Parking proposal doesn’t pass tests

Editor’s note: This letter was sent to Commissioner Jerry Patterson of the Texas General Land Office.



I am a member of the Board of Regents of the Galveston Community College District. I am writing to express legal concerns about the proposal by the city of Galveston to charge a fee for parking on our seawall.

First, the city of Galveston has refused to be responsive to open records requests to allow the public to review the proposed contract and ordinance governing seawall paid parking. The residents of Galveston have not had a chance to examine the plan now being considered by your office.

Second, TAC Rule 15.8 regarding beach user fees requires two elements the city of Galveston has not addressed:

1. Rule 15.8(b) requires the city establish reciprocity of fees with other entities in the county charging a beach user fee. The county of Galveston charges a beach user fee on the Bolivar Peninsula. Neither the county nor the city of Galveston has presented a plan for reciprocity of fees as required by the TAC rule.

2. Rule 15.8(f) requires no more than 10 percent of revenue collected through a beach user fee be used for administrative purposes. However, from what little we in the public have learned, the city of Galveston proposes that the overwhelming majority of the revenue collected will be surrendered to a parking meter company to administer the collection of the fee. From what we understand, 90 percent of the first $500,000 collected will go to nothing more than paying to offset the administrative burden of simply collecting the fee.

Afterward, the city does no better than retaining roughly 70 percent of the revenue collected, with the remaining 30 percent being used for administrative purposes. Beach user fees collected by permit, such as those in Surfside and Bolivar, have far lower administrative costs.

When a beach user fee is collected, the spirit and wording of Rule 15.8(f) seems to demand that every time a beach user drops a dollar bill in beach user fees, the law requires at least 90 cents on that dollar be used to provide an amenity on the beach. The law does not seem to contemplate allowing local governments to establish collection schemes that place huge administrative burdens on collection.

I respectfully request you consider these legal issues in your examination of the city of Galveston’s plan to charge for parking on the seawall. It appears to many of us here in Galveston the proposal now before the GLO does not meet the tests established by Rule 15.8.

Gregory R. Roof is a member of the Galveston College Board of Regents.