THUNDER BAY — A Thunder Bay city councillor says a former councillor doesn’t have his facts straight when it comes to the city-owned parkades.
McKellar Coun. Brian Hamilton, responding to a recent Chronicle-Journal story in which Aldo Ruberto, who served on council from 2006 to 2022, called on the city to sell municipally-owned parkades to the private sector.
Ruberto, chair of the South Core Business Improvement Area, said the two structures would be better off in private hands, while generating $90,000 in taxation revenue and eliminating the need for increased or new parking fees.
His comments come in the wake of the decision by city council earlier this year to extend paid parking hours to 9 p.m. on city streets from Monday to Saturday, while also starting to charge for parking at the waterfront, a move that has not sat well with many members of the public.
In the article, Ruberto told the Chronicle-Journal that several groups wanted to buy the parkades and keep them for their employees, while still offering up parking for the general public.
“I don’t think the former councillor has good information,” Hamilton said on Wednesday.
“There’s never been an offer to city council or to staff about the selling of the parkades. Not that I know of and certainly not in my time on council.”
Ruberto went on to say the two parkades, one located adjacent to Victoriaville Mall, the other in the downtown north core, were frightening for the public to use, frequented by homeless people, or used for sex, doing drugs or using them as bathrooms.
Again, Hamilton disagreed, saying safety in the parkades has improved considerably.
“Users requested this several years ago, actually,” Hamilton said. “We took steps and our operating budget increased, and part of the new user fees address the updated security. So now at both parkades we have increased security.
“These are open-air facilities. They have to be for a variety of reasons. We can’t really stop people from going in. We don’t want to see crime, we don’t want to see property damage, we don’t want to see any assaults. And right now our incident reports are very minimal.”
Hamilton said the perception of safety is also critically important, which is why security protocols have been updated, which has led to a lot more security being visible in the two parkades.
Hamilton also plans to ask council to reconsider its parking fee structure, particularly the extended hours.
