Here’s your chance to ask questions about overnight RV parking in Hawks Prairie
If you want to learn more or ask questions about a plan to allow RVs and other vehicles to park overnight on an unfinished road called Main Street in northeast Lacey, here’s your chance.
The city has scheduled a 90-minute informational meeting for 6:30 p.m. Oct. 16 at Lacey City Hall, 420 College St. SE.
Lacey officials, including the City Council, are expected to attend and explain the plan. The city says a question-and-answer session will be part of the meeting. It’s not clear whether the council will vote on the proposal during that meeting.
Lacey resident Cate Berry, who has lived in Hawks Prairie for three years, is convinced the proposal is a done deal. Berry reached out to The Olympian in a series of emails and also spoke to a reporter about the meeting.
Berry said she is deeply concerned about the RV site. She estimated she has alerted 400 people, including business owners, about the October meeting.
“This (Main Street plan) was done with no notice to residents or business owners,” she wrote in an email. “Even when we sent several emails and attended meetings of council, we were led to believe the decision was not final. Low and behold, we discover portable toilets were being placed at the site. When questioned about this, we were finally told, yes, the decision had been made and the camp would open the end of September.”
In response to the concerns of Berry and perhaps others, City Manager Scott Spence announced on Sept. 26 that the city would take no further steps on the Main Street site until it held the Oct. 16 meeting.
If, as Berry says, the “decision had been made,” when did that happen? That hasn’t been clear. But the City Council has taken some related actions.
On Sept. 12, the council approved a parking ordinance that limits RV and commercial vehicle parking to no more than four hours on public property, including parking lots. The city wanted the ordinance because of the number of people who were living out of their RVs in the parking lot near City Hall.
The ordinance took effect citywide in the days after Sept. 12 but wasn’t enforced until last weekend at City Hall.
The ordinance allows for RVs to exceed the four-hour limit with a permit in a designated parking area such as Main Street — though that part of the plan wasn’t on the Sept. 12 agenda. The temporary overnight parking likely would operate 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.
Lacey Police Chief Ken Semko said the free permits will be issued by his department and come with some requirements, such as a valid driver’s license, valid vehicle registration and insurance, no outstanding warrants, and full compliance if the person is a sex offender.
On Sept. 26, the council approved some 2019 budget amendments, including $61,000 for a temporary overnight parking site. The agenda for that meeting also did not specifically identify Main Street.
Berry thinks the temporary overnight parking should stay at City Hall.
“This way Lacey police will be in close proximity for oversight and to respond to problems,” she said in an email. “Further, the City Hall parking lot is closer to services for those wanting help. Given that the camp must be vacated each morning by 7 a.m., the vehicles in the City Hall parking lot will not interfere with the (Timberland library branch) or City Hall during the day.”
This story was originally published October 3, 2019 at 7:00 AM.
