Although paid parking for all of downtown may not be in the city’s immediate plans, the city of San Marcos hopes to step up enforcement of its existing parking policies in the downtown area. San Marcos City Council discussed the issue Tuesday night.

City staff presented four recommendations to council, including use of license plate-recognition technology to improve enforcement of existing parking rules, implementation of a two-hour limit on all parking spaces downtown, addition of parking spaces downtown and creation of an employee parking program for downtown businesses to provide parking for their workers.

The city has issued 6,500 parking citations in the downtown area in the past year. Those citations have totaled about $380,000, said Kevin Burke, economic and development project manager, who presented the city staff’s parking recommendations to City Council on Tuesday.

The first recommendation, to utilize license plate-recognition software to enhance the city’s enforcement of existing parking rules—such as the two-hour limit on many spaces in the downtown area—would improve the city’s ability to monitor parking downtown, Burke said.

City Manager Jared Miller said the city is talking less about changing rules and more about improving enforcement of existing ones. Many parking spaces downtown are reserved for two-hour maximum use, but the city does not enforce that rule well right now, he said.

"We're like a myopic person walking down the street, and we only give a ticket when we're able to sit and really look at [the vehicle] and really focus on it," Miller said. "[With the new technology], we'll just have better glasses as we're driving down the street."

Currently, San Marcos Police Department officers patrol downtown, marking vehicles’ tires with chalk to determine if a vehicle has been parked in the same spot for more than two hours. That method of enforcement stresses the department’s staff and resources, Burke said.

SMPD vehicles would be equipped with license plate-recognition software. The equipment would scan vehicles' license plates in the downtown area. This would provide significant relief to SMPD staff and resources.

Council Member Jude Prather raised a concern about how data from the license plate recognition software would be used and how long the city might keep the data.

“Of the things we would bring back to council, the very first one is a privacy policy that we would put in place,” Burke said.

Burke said one potential advantage of sharing data collected through the technology with the Texas State University would be that it could allow for more efficient delivery of citations to students who break parking rules downtown. The citation could be sent directly to the student’s email, which is shared with the university. Burke said it is more likely the city would link the technology with state records rather than the university.

Current direction from City Council is to move toward paid parking for all of downtown, and unless city staff receives direction to no longer pursue implementation of paid parking, the city will continue moving in that direction, Burke said.

The city currently has about 1,600 parking spaces downtown. Council Member Scott Gregson said he and Council Member Jane Hughson have estimated the city could add about 130 spaces with minimal cost or work.

A move to a uniform two-hour parking limit could affect downtown businesses, Council Member John Thomaides said.

“My concern is that how do we allow a citizen, a visitor, to come into our downtown and spend some time?” Thomaides said. “Two hours is a fair amount of time, but if you want to make a day of it, you can’t. You have to get in your car and move it because you can’t pay a meter.”

Burke said within the next six months staff will bring forward proposals for implementing license plate-recognition technology and moving forward with the other recommendations.