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Parking on public streets is allowed, but what happens when it becomes a nuisance?

The city of Grand Coulee is trying to find a solution to prevent people from parking in places that are inconvenient for others, such as in front of others' homes, businesses, or churches.

The topic came up at the Grand Coulee council meeting on Jan. 15.

"A person has multiple vehicles parked pretty much throughout town, taking up on-street parking for residents," City Clerk Lorna Pearce said. "We're constantly getting calls from neighbors because they can't park in front of their house because he's parked in front of their house."

"If it's a public street, we can't tell him he can't park there, regardless of the fact that it's in front of their house," Pearce added, explaining that the situation is more complicated than telling him "no."

"I'm wondering if we need to develop an ordinance addressing street parking, whether it be a time issue, or whether it be obstructing access to someone's house," said Mayor Paul Townsend. "Let's look at this and see what we have to work with."

Townsend said Police Chief John Tufts has said enforcing a time limit can be tricky.

"The guy comes out and moves it four inches; how do we evaluate that?" Townsend said.

The issue is particularly acute in the area of Continental Heights and Young Street.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church on Continental has had the man take up parking spaces with his vehicles, Pearce explained as the council was presented with a photo showing a long-box extended pickup with a trailer behind it taking up "pretty much all of the parking there," as Pearce put it.

Church attendee Marlene Oddie, present at the meeting, suggested ordinances restricting parking in relation to time, parking in front of businesses, or restrictions regarding trailers.

"Just throwing ideas out there to try to handle this, because this is just getting ridiculous," Oddie told the council.

Dennis Francis, publics works director for the city, mentioned that snowplowing on the narrow Young Street in that area is made more difficult by the large number of vehicles there.

"I hate to say it: it's just a lack of consideration," Townsend said. "It's just, 'Can't we all just get along?' You used to be able to talk to your neighbor and say, 'you know, that's kind of causing a problem for me,' and you work it out. But apparently those days are gone."

Councilmembers Tom Poplawski and Mike Horne were tasked with looking further into solutions for the issue.

"This is something I want to really get handled, and I would really like to see a good report at the next meeting with creative ideas on how to handle this," Townsend said.