Downtown Clayton to receive part-time parking enforcement officer

Multiple concerns have been expressed in the past by downtown Clayton business owners conveying the issue of the lack of the city’s parking ordinance enforcement.

According to city officials, the current ordinance mandates that “it is unlawful to park a motor vehicle more than three hours on the public streets in the city on Main Street between its intersection of Mill Street on the south and its intersection of Hamby Street on the north and on Savannah Street from its intersection of Old Warwoman Road and Old Chechero Road on the east and Church Street on the west.”

Now, thankfully there has been a resolution to this problem as the Clayton City Council approved the hiring of a part-time parking enforcement officer according to Clayton Police Chief Andy Strait.

“The person they [council] hired is a civilian so they will only be able to do three-hour parking enforcement because it is an ordinance,” he said. “If there are any other violations such as handicap or parking in the crosswalk, the police officers that are on duty will take care of those violations.”

The parking enforcement officer will be making sure no one overstays their three-hour limit on Main Street on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., but according to Strait that is the only ordinance they will be able to enforce.

“The only thing this officer will be able to enforce is the three-hour parking ordinance,” he said.

The new-hire will fall under the jurisdiction and direction of the Clayton Police Department but Strait is hopeful that this resolution will help resolve the conflict for business owners downtown.

“We hope it’s going to improve the parking issues downtown. Hopefully, if there are some businesses that have employees park there, it will convince their employees to move to the city employee parking that we have designated for that purpose and open it up for more tourism and shoppers,” he said.