To park or not to park: Resident notes conflict between parking sign and borough ordinance

Signage at Columbia River Park states that only vehicles with trailers may park in the main lot between Memorial Day and Labor Day, but the ordinance makes no mention of those dates.

JOE LINTNER | COLUMBIA SPY 

Columbia resident Mary Wickenheiser told officials at Tuesday's borough council meeting that a discrepancy exists between parking signage at Columbia River Park and the municipal ordinance that governs parking there.

Wickenheiser noted that Columbia River Parking Ordinance 719, adopted May 12, 2003, states that designated spaces at River Park should be reserved exclusively for vehicles with trailers (with no restrictions for time of year). In other words, the ordinance indicates that area is reserved year-round.

However, signage at the park indicates that the trailer-only parking restriction applies only from Memorial Day through Labor Day, after which the spaces become available for general parking. (The designated spaces are in the parking lot between the Columbia Crossing building and the bridge.)

"There is nothing in this ordinance specifying Memorial Day to Labor Day," Wickenheiser told council.

Ordinance 719 authorizes the Borough's Public Safety Committee to "establish, designate and mark by proper signs parking zones or parking places for the exclusive use by vehicles with trailers only" at River Park parking areas. The ordinance specifies that "no vehicle, other than a vehicle with trailer, shall at any time be parked at such spaces so designated."

"I spent two hours going through River Park advisory notes thinking that maybe this was something that happened after the building [Columbia Crossing] opened, but it was not," Wickenheiser said. 

Mayor Leo Lutz suggested that updated language may not have gone through general codes and been published.

Columbia River Park property is governed by an agreement between the Borough of Columbia and the Pennsylvania Fish Commission dated September 9, 1968, according to the ordinance text.

The issue was left unresolved at the end of the meeting.