Mayor Confirms No Free Parking

Once again the City has confirmed the local Monopoly game does not have a Free Parking space for anyone - iincluding out of province plated vehicles

By Robert Thomas

It’s a question MJ Independent has asked in the past and is now a question that has been asked by Mayor Clive Tolley.

The question is it true that Moose Jaw is now ticketing out of province vehicles for not plugging the parking meter.

In a response tI Mayor Tolley it was confirmed once again by Administration the former practice of not ticketing out of province plated vehicles for not paying at parking meters had been quietly abandoned end.

“People were coming to the city Moose Jaw in other years from other provinces and it was a habit, perhaps not a policy but a habit, that we were not ticketing people from out of province,” Mayor Tolley said.

Mayor Tolley said he enquired about the change in direction when it came to out of province vehicles being ticketed for not plugging parking meters.

“I had several people contact me very I read about this so I made the enquiry.”

Mayor Tolley read from the report that the decision to change the practice and then take it out of province plated vehicles for not plugging parking metres had been done in a Stratehic Planning Session.

A strategic planning session is a meeting that is conducted in-camera with no minutes kept and no release what was discussed at the meeting with the general public.

The reason for the change in practice was made to drive additional parking revenue, he said.

In a May 2022 post Council presser MJ Independent questions, then city manager Jim Puffalt, about the city quietly discontinuing not ticketing out of province plates for not plugging parking meters did not go into a detailed explanation about the change in pratice.

At the time Puffalt responded to MJ Independent’s questions that “parking is parking” irregardless of where the vehicle was from. He did not state the decision has been made at a strategic planning session and additionally explain why the measure had not been made public knowledge.

Mayor Tolley said he asked the question so as to publicize the change in practice.

“The issue rose when drivers with out of province license plates were actually working here and going to Sask Polytech and for a variety of reasons were in the community so it was discontinued between 2018 and 2020.”

“People coming from other provinces, can expect to use the parking meters like the rest of us,” Mayor Tolley said.