Public Safety Committee - Regular Meeting

to get it. So, they're still with us. Okay. So, they'll be up next year and maybe blow over. They blow over with 50 pounds or less. I can't believe I'd like to call the public safety meeting to order for January 13, 2026. Before we begin, I would like to introduce Chief Edwards, uh, the interim fire chief. He will be with us and we're glad to have you. Do I have a motion to approve the October 14th meeting minutes? So moved. Second. All in favor? Motion passes. Do I have a motion to accept the agenda? So move.

Second. All in favor? I. Motion passes. We have no one signed up for citizen comments. We have no ordinances and resolutions. So, we are going to have a discussion on street parking. Would you like to start that discussion? First, let me hand these out.

I've got 10 of them. Uh, this is our current code as well as some pictures and some other information. So, what our current code is right now. Um, some of it passed 1970 some passed. Uh, I think there's one item that's more recent. I think 19 something. Actually, we had one in 2017. I think full 2019. Um, as far as safety required. Uh, and if you look past there, you'll see uh some pictures and some Facebook comments. Um, some pictures that were sent to me. Um, uh, some of the situations you see are are concerning. Certainly the two tarps tarps nearly side by side um is concerned as far as what what could pass through there. Um got email from uh you see the ones where they're actually parked the sidewalk at Beagle and that

um you see there was an accident that somebody just turn came around a corner in balance and there's a car seen there. went into um I don't think we can assign blame but certainly the exit the path that car not being parked there and then you see in the very very back you see some you see the solution is if we ban all street parking you see what some folks do they just park on their yard um and that

I asked my wife about that she said I would park in the yard so you see a situation the solution might be looking good um uh I probably get a call a month asking me to have um police go patrol areas about illegal parking. Sometimes it's the cones that aren't set up. Sometimes it's too far. Sometimes it's been cars people are let me know cars been parked there many many days at a time. Um and so what I do in those situations and in situations where somebody calls me about a short-term rental or somebody calls me about a loud dog or a rooster is I say, "I will take care of it. You don't need to write up anything. You don't need to send us anything. I'll take care of it. you can remain anonymous because a lot of times people are reluctant to complain about their I understand that. So, I bet you gosh, more than 100 times I've done that where somebody's called and complained about something going on in the neighborhood that is illegal and then I'll call the police or I'll call dispatchers and I'll say, "Hey, can y'all go check this out?" Um, I don't tell them to go write a ticket. I just say, "Can y'all go check this out?" They handle the way that police need to handle it. Um, uh, um, Assistant Chief Morrison a couple years ago, he gave me some ideas for revisions to the parking ordinance. more anything else. I just want to give this to y'all, have you all take a look at it. We I'll discuss as long as you want to. We can wait a couple months, we can do it, whatever y'all prefer. Uh the solution, if we need to make a change, is not easy. My issue with the ordinance that's in place, it is just illegal from one to five. Um I have a little bit of a problem with that. My biggest issue, I want fire trucks to be able to get through and we need to come up with some type of solution. I don't know if that's every subdivision if you're parked on the street or every street in Hendersonville, but if you're parked on the street, um if the fire truck can't get through, I know there's certain areas if there was a car parked on the street, there's no way a fire truck is going to get

a picture, which would be very hard on one of those. Um and so that's my biggest concern. Um, of course I don't want people parking in the yard. So, I think we need to bounce around some ideas. Um, and see what we come up with. I would like to even see if there's a list that maybe the fire department could generate of areas. I don't know if that would be too difficult or what, but areas that it's definitely going to be a major issue. Chief Jones and I discussed that we have some streets that are so narrow that there probably should not be parking on those streets, right?

So, I don't know. to talk to public works about. You had given me some examples of those streets and figuring out like what their width is and there are not so many of them that we couldn't put up signs and and eliminate our and then after we had that conversation, sure enough, there was a fire on one of them. And then you were telling me there was a fire more recently. I can't remember what street that was on. um where you had issues because there were cars on both sides of the street.

Yeah, the Durham Farm subdivision is one that comes to mind. We've had several issues there. They park on both sides of it. So, if our engine's about just the bumper width, not counting the mirrors, it's about 8 and 1/2 ft wide. And then depending on the truck and depending on how far the mirrors stick out, you're looking at about another 9 and 1/2 ft. So, it makes it difficult for us to be able to maneuver through those streets where they park on both sides of it. Especially like like I said, the Durham Farms, uh, some of the alleyways in the Durham Farms or whatever. It's almost impossible when they're on both sides of for us to be able to get through there.

Um, so I actually asked for this to to come up for a discussion and I asked Collins to be here for it because it's really W five that this has affected here recently quite a bit. Um, I know there were a lot of complaints with people parking on the streets and we have had PD go out and address those. Um, one of the complaints I had was there are no signs in those subdivisions saying no parking in the street. So, I think that that's a great idea to look into adding those in with the certain Right. And so, actually, there aren't streets in five that are that narrow. There are there are not

not in W five. They're older because the requirements for the width of streets changed at some point in the past. So W five is newer and I I don't think we have that. Chief Jones, where are the narrow streets or is there a way we can compile a list of these streets? I guess that's what Rachel's asking. Well, so so there's some streets uh and I'll give you a couple of example. Um if you look over like say Plumbley or Chival, if there's a one car parked on the side of the road, it's blocking the road,

it's virtually impossible for people to get through there. And in no circumstance can two vehicles get through there. And and I'm just guessing here, but I would say if a fire apparatus or an ambulance because the box on the back of the ambulance is wider, if they had to get through there and a car is parked on the street, it'd be almost impossible. Uh whereas we have some streets that if they're parked on one side of the road, it might be okay. They're parked on both sides of the stro street. Even, you know, even though the streets are much wider, a fire engine probably could not navigate that just just because of the width of the vehicle. I mean, our patrol vehicles are a little narrower, but but still there's there's some areas where if if cars parked on both side of the road, I would say a patrol vehicle would even have trouble getting through there. So, I mean,

which means that particularly in the Westlake area, I don't like you're talking.

Sure. And so, in those situations, I mean, it it's just it's bad. And if an officer's responding emergency call, you know, lights and siren or an ambulance or fire engine and all of a sudden they come up on one of these areas and now they can't get through there because there's cars parked on both sides. But I mean, I think I I realize that if we were strictly basing this on um providing responses and having public safety be at the forefront, which it should be, then we would say we can only allow cars to park on one side of the street. But I don't know how in the world we could possibly implement that. You would have to put signage that designated

parking this side only and but that just means that that would really really upset people. I would not disagree with you. And Don, what would your wife do? Huh? I don't know what she would do. Would she park in a yard? if she couldn't park in the street and there was I mean because we have a small driveway we can get if we cram four cars in our driveway we could but you got to move one to get the other three out at that point but um but literally if there was four people two teenagers and two adults in our house um

we wouldn't have a place to park now I agree with what was said earlier it's like we had the foresight we don't have two teenagers anymore and two cars fits fine in our driveway now so Um the thing the question I have about signs is you could enforce that but it needs to be all or nothing. It's very difficult to enforce one side or the other. I I just don't know. I don't understand. And even confusing with signs because you don't know if it's this side or that side. Well, some municipalities have signs that say parking this side of the street only.

Okay. And so in other words, it designates which side is the selected side for whatever reason. And how they arrived at that this side versus this side, I have no idea, but I'm saying I have seen them where parking is only allowed on one side of the street, you know, but they're pretty specific and does not say parking on one side only. It specifies this side, yes, this side, no. And so, but I agree. I mean, you're gonna that's going to be difficult for some folks.

Well, the other concern I have about signs is and I explained one time about speed limit signs. I think maybe the police would agree. Speed limit sign really just tells you how fast you're going over the speed limit. It does not slow you down. So, if it says 30 and I'm doing 45, I know I'm doing 15 over is the way it looks. So, the sign is not going to solve the problem, right? How much will this have to post the sign in order to to enforce it for that for that change? You know, the current ordinance is in existence and we enforce what's written out, but I mean, we also, you know, realize that I'm not I'm just not sure where the 1:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. time.

That's what I have an issue with. That doesn't make it would seem if the hours if nighttime was the concern, they would have said no parking from sun up or sunset to sun up because then that even changes with the seasons. You know, you don't have to worry about that. So, when the sun goes down, you can't park on a street.

Chief Edwards, is is the nighttime significantly different getting a fire truck through daytime? Well, yeah, because people are more people are home at night, so there's going to be more cars on the roadway. Uh, and and like Chief Jones said, they're going to park wherever they want to park, and it makes it a little bit more difficult for us to navigate and be able to see out the mirrors to and it slows our response time down going through those areas as well. But it just night time just because there's more people on and it may be more difficult to see people out actually walking to their car at night. That that too. Yes, ma'am.

Could we as a long range plan, I guess, number one, identify the problem areas, which are typically narrow streets, um, change our existing ordinance to take out the one to five and make it 24 hours and it can be enforced as needed because there's going to be areas or communities that are more problematic than others. Some of those areas are, it's not so much the width of the street as it is the depth of the driveway. Okay, that would really not um if we don't allow any street parking, it's going to be bad and we're five people will have to park in their yards. That's where a lot of the driveways aren't as deep. They're not

aren't as deep. And I know for me when we did have both the kids at home and my kids are 12 months apart, so they were both driving, it was just it just felt like there were cars everywhere. And we did park one on the street for a year and a half probably. And then when they were home in the summer from college, we could do what we could not we we could do what you're saying is some sort of survey of the roads, but I think it also should include subdivisions that don't have deep driveways. Uh W four, my love mom was in W four, you'd have to have 40 cars before her cars back up to the street. Mhm.

Um but there's places my subdivision is a great example in W five is that once you get to the to the third or fourth car, the next option. Yeah. And I would say all of I mean I hate to generalize but most houses built these days driveways about four cars big. It's the long driveways are obviously an exception. But so that's saying so if we identify the problem areas and the problem area really comes with getting a fire apparatus through um so we could identify problem areas and maybe put signs in those areas of those street park and I know there's no way around making somebody upset

somewhere. Um, but if you gave them the choice of put up a sign and no street parking bing, let your house burn down, they might make a different decision. Well, yes, but they're not going to see it from that perspective. Um, I put a little blip on the bottom of the ticket. Um, but we would need to have exceptions for you're getting your refrigerator delivered or your lawn care company is mowing your yard or

See, I don't call it parking. They're there. They're they're close enough to the vehicle if a fire truck comes, they can go move it. That's not parking on the street. Unattended and it's very temporary. So, if you're getting a refrigerator delivered, they're unloading it, reloading. And the other thing is the ordinance was changed some several I think the mayor mentioned the year that I think it was 2017 2019 was about con

2019 and and so if if there's a lawn service that's there temporarily they have to set a cone out to the front and the rear but they're also within sight of their vehicle most of the entire time they're there. So obviously it'd still be a problem if there's a if fire apparatus go in an emergency, but if it was, you know, somebody just if it's causing a traffic, they can come with their vehicle. But uh but again, those are temporary. That's not and they're attended like you said unattended vehicles. Um

how many incidents would you say are people backing out of their driveway and hitting? because we've talked about that from time to time when we've said how many accidents have been here where they're saying everybody's speeding and well compared to our total amount of accidents very very little very very minimal I mean we'll have 2200 crashes in a year I mean I would say 15 of those might be somebody backing out of their driveway over a year stop rate and there's various it could be hitting their own mail blocks or in a 10 if that's a lot of those aren't too good I backed into the guy cutting the grass from my neighbor a couple of years ago go went and found him, said, "I backed into your truck. We took care of the insurance and never made a police report." Right.

Right. I'm nervous to say no street parking. That's tough. That's It's really tough because we have a lot of areas that are designed with very driveways and and the reality is some of the areas in town that have the really wide streets where somebody can park on both sides and even a fire truck could get it. We don't we don't get complaints in those neighborhoods. We don't get complaints from those neighborhoods usually about somebody's parked on the street but but we get we get them it's mainly when people are having trouble getting through then they start calling where they call the mayor or they call me or they call the ECC and and you know they just a lot of times they'll call them all

all the neighborhoods I don't think there's an exception at all that I can think of but I'm very well aware that half the people don't like street parking and the other half of the people are parked on the street. It's almost the way of the world. So, right. So, um I just want our policy to be guided by safety and not politics because this isn't a situation where we can make people happy or should. So,

so maybe we can change the existing ordinance we have because I don't think we need to reinvent the wheel, but change the existing ordinance to say what Chief Jones had mentioned from um dust to don't that addresses your safety issue. The street width well it's and we still have the problem areas that are well known by the police and there are some street width I don't know what that is that just should not have parking. We place some new parking signs in some of this. We haven't really Well, we have the traffic and parking committee made some recommendations about two years ago on some streets. No, they didn't very very few uh cages and maybe

shovel shovels cuz it's kind and it's narrow. It's very narrow but there are more hand could we and just hold that off making any decisions let traffic and parking visit it too and then kind of combine and see what we come up with. Yeah. Is everybody good with that? Any other discussion then on this? No, I think it was a good discussion. When will traffic and parking meet? They don't have a meeting schedule right now, but I can see it. It'll be within the next two months. Okay, perfect. Do I have a motion to adjurnn? So move.

Second. All in favor? I motion carries.