Sunday, October 23, 2011

Parking Woes at Lauderdale County Courthouse


With construction to continue at the Lauderdale County Courthouse for approximately another 12 months, parking is at a premium. We've had several readers mention the lack of parking spaces, but this particular e-mail seems to sum it up quite well:

Lack of adequate parking space at the Lauderdale County courthouse has always been a problem. With the ongoing construction MONTHS from completion, what little parking WAS available for county employees, law enforcement officers and people conducting business in the courthouse, is now even MORE inadequate. There are a finite number of parking spaces (metered) on the streets...hardly enough for those individuals mentioned above to use. As a result, these aforementioned individuals have been forced to park where they can find space, sometimes several blocks away.

However, some local businesses, with little-used parking lots of their own, recently made it clear that individuals using their parking lots, while working in the Lauderdale County Courthouse, or while conducting personal business in the courthouse, WILL have their vehicles towed. So much for being 'good neighbors'. Chalk 'another one' up for poor planning on part of Lauderdale County officials in not having made plans to deal with the lack of parking space during the renovation of the courthouse.

We will disagree about neighboring businesses; it's not their place to provide parking for construction or other workers, and just because there's available parking at 8:00 a.m., it doesn't always follow that those spaces won't be needed throughout the day. We'll inject here that the Florence-Lauderdale Government Building next door to the courthouse also has abysmal parking, considering the structure was originally a bank/office complex.

We will agree that the entire construction project was poorly planned by all departments. If you have regular business at the courthouse and are unable to park, we suggest you make the county commission aware of the problem, or contact Fitz Hill who is overseeing the renovations.

County Commission: 256.760.5747

Fitz Hill:
256.766.2000

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Shoalanda