Parking Spaces

Dear Editor: Without a parking garage behind the Hub building, we don't have enough parking spaces for any new business or institution on Main Street. The Heart of Danville has a valuable prospective tenant for the Hub building. This tenant needs to know by Nov. 30 whether Danville will commit to providing needed parking spaces. The Heart of Danville has quite reasonably asked the City Commission to commit to a bond issuance contingent on the city receiving a promised federal grant of $1.75 million for the garage.

One of Winchester's churches will soon get a little bigger.The Winchester-Clark County Board of Adjustments approved a request by Calvary Baptist Church on French Avenue for an additional sanctuary on the church site, according to board treasurer Dr. Rankin Skinner. The church must have vinyl siding, "which will blend more with the community's housing," he said, and will have to provide off-street parking if the number of members grows. Churches must have so many parking spaces available in accordance with the number of seats in the sanctuary, he explained.

Parking downtown will get worse before it gets better. As construction and renovation projects start popping up in 2006, there will be patches of parking spaces blocked off. Danville City Commission is gathering information about the parking situation and will likely discuss the issue in January. The city is expected to start building a parking garage at Walnut and Third streets in 2006, and City Engineer Earl Coffey said the project could affect on-street parking in the area.

The Garrard County Fiscal Court acquired on Tuesday the final piece of land it needs to proceed with construction of a new Garrard County Judicial Center. The city of Lancaster handed over a small alleyway next to the courthouse, giving the Fiscal Court ownership of all the land that will be used for the judicial center, said Garrard County Judge-Executive John Wilson. Groundbreaking for the center will be in the second week of August, Wilson said. Construction is expected to be complete in winter 2010.

Part of the sidewalk, about the span of five parking spaces, in front of the old Gilcher Hotel on Main Street is closed off by a tall chain link fence so construction crews can build steel and concrete braces to hold up the facade of the building. The brace will keep the front of the building steady while the back of the hotel is demolished. The Gilcher will become the Central Kentucky Ambulatory Surgical Center. The building is owned by a group of local doctors, who agreed to preserve the facade.

To the editor, In regards to the letter in the July 24 issue of The Journal, I feel the need to refute the letter concerning handicap parking spaces. I have sat in the parking lot at Wal-Mart and observed a police officer stop his car and get out and check a vehicle that was in the handicapped parking area. It did not have one of the rear-view mirror tags on it. He then walked to the rear of the vehicle and found it did have a handicapped vehicle licensed tag. My aunt, who has a tag but forgot to put it up on her rearview mirror when she went to an appointment at Jessamine Medical, received a citation or ticket, whichever it is they issue for non-compliance while at her appointment.

Boyle County Public Library will work with Pearson & Peters Architects PLC of Lexington to expand parking and enhance green space at the library, with design work expected by the end of this year and construction in the spring. The library board purchased two properties along Fourth Street and at Fourth and Broadway in December. After an extensive, long-range planning process that culminated in June, the library is moving to increase accessibility. The new parking spaces will be wider than those in the current parking lot, and the board is considering the use of permeable paving to allow environmentally-friendly draining.

City and county officials are faced with a rather sticky problem right now trying to determine the best course for creating additional parking in the downtown area while weighing the desire to maintain the architectural fabric of the area. With the purchase of the Ark of Mercy property and the Stone property to the west (adjacent to Wall Alley) a great opportunity exists to establish parking that would primarily be for the use of employees of the courthouse and the Judicial Center.

Setting the record straight about gas station, skate park To the Sun: This is to set straight some things that were printed in The Winchester Sun. First I'll respond to the letter to the editor from Robert Haffly: "Could there be a gas monopoly?" The Planning Commission turned down Wal-Mart's request for a gas station because Wal-Mart wanted to put it in the northeast corner of their lot. It would have taken too many parking spaces allotted to the store, and the proposal would have required the removal of greenspace.

What is it with all the people who consistently abuse handicap parking spaces? Why is it so much more difficult for them to walk another 50 feet to get into the store? How many of us have seen someone park in a reserved parking space, reach into some obscure location within their vehicle, draw out a handicap parking tag, place it on their rearview mirror and then casually exit their vehicle and walk — totally unimpaired — inside? It is absolutely maddening that there are people out there so insensitive to the needs of truly challenged others that they will gladly and willingly take up parking spaces for their own selfish use. It is equally maddening that very few of us will accost — not physically, of course — one of these selfish individuals and ask them why they would do such a thing.