The proposal to dramatically increase downtown parking fees got stuck in neutral at Tuesday’s meeting of the Santa Barbara Finance Committee.

Committee members Meagan Harmon supported the parking fees, committee member Eric Friedman opposed them, and chair Alejandra Gutierrez preferred an alternative.

“Ultimately, the issue is downtown,” Friedman said. “As a policy, what are we doing as a city to get more people downtown? If we have people coming downtown, they will be using the lots and you’ll be getting the revenue.

“When you take away the on-street parking, you will discourage people from going downtown.”

The three-member Finance Committee made no recommendation but instead pushed the downtown parking fee increases and a last-minute alternative to the full City Council for consideration.

The City of Santa Barbara wants to charge people to park downtown on a “pay-by-plate” basis, using a mobile payment app, a website or a self-serve kiosk. The “pay-by-plate” fees would generate an estimated $2.5 million. The first 15 minutes would be free, and it would cost $1.50 every hour after that. There would be no daily maximum.

In addition, in surface parking lots, the city wants to reduce the 75-minute free period to 15 minutes free, and a $1.50 charge for every 30 minutes after that. There would be no daily maximum.

In parking garages, the city wants to drop the free time from 75 minutes to 60 minutes, and charge $2 for every hour after that. For garages, there would be a $10 maximum.

The city also wants to offer $70 monthly parking permits to downtown employees to park in the city garages, to reduce the number of people parking on city streets. The current monthly rate is $145 to $165.

Overall, the city is projecting a $7.1 million budget shortfall, but that deficit could reach as high as $10.1 million if the city does not approve the “pay-by-plate” fees and several other cost increases to park downtown.

Sarah Clark, downtown team manager, strongly pushed the parking fee proposal over an alternative. She spent 24 minutes advocating for the proposed fee increases, and about two minutes explaining an alternative that would use about $1 million of general fund money and another $2.3 million of Measure C funds, for one year only.

In attempting to sell the Finance Committee on the benefits of the proposed parking fee increases, Clark showed a chart titled “Impacts of Fee Change,” where she outlined various tasks and how long it would take to complete them.

For example, she said, “dinner and a movie” would take about 4.5 hours and cost only $8 under the new system, as opposed to $12 now. She said a night out for drinks where the driver leaves the car overnight and takes a taxi home would cost only $10 under the new proposal. Such a scenario now would cost $33, she said.

She said a “pick-up, to-go order” would only take 15 minutes and would be free.

Harmon said 15 minutes isn’t a lot of time and asked if the free on-street parking could be extended to 30 minutes.

“I have never been able to do anything in 15 minutes,” Harmon said. “I can’t even get out of my car in 15 minutes with the large number of children that I now have. It seems more reasonable that an errand could be done in 30 minutes.”

Clark responded that “15 minutes is pretty standard in parking management for short-term parking, so if you look all around our city, those green zones are 15-minute zones. So that’s sort of the expected amount you would stay.”

“Again, these are really just pop-in, pop-out; think of it like picking up a take-out order,” Clark said.

The streets proposed for paid on-street parking are roughly Chapala, De la Vina, Anacapa and Santa Barbara streets, from Gutierrez Street to Arrellaga Street.

Representatives of the Downtown Organization expressed support for the increased fees, but other members of the public opposed the idea, suggesting that closing several blocks of State Street to vehicles has hurt the parking lots.

“I would submit to you that you have seen a sizable falloff in all of the parking structures once we closed State Street,” commercial real estate broker Steve Leider said. “What the commercial people are telling me is that we are not getting people downtown.”

Leider said sales taxes and hotel bed taxes are down because people aren’t going downtown. He said offering only 15 minutes of free time will discourage people from going downtown.

“Fifteen minutes is not enough time to dodge out, if you are lucky to get a green space,” Leider said.

Later, at the City Council meeting, retired police Sgt. Mike McGrew spoke in opposition to the fee increases. He runs nonprofit organization 911 At Ease International out of an office in La Arcada Plaza. He said the fee increases would hurt the people with the least amount of money.

“It goes against probably the diversity, equity and inclusion movement,” McGrew said. “This is going to affect the underserved.”