A dispute over the use of around 14 county-owned parking spots facing the train station in downtown Jim Thorpe during Fall Foliage Festival weekends took center stage at Thursday night’s borough council meeting.

The spots have been blocked off during festival weekends for the past several years and the area, often referred to as the “corral,” was transitioned into a turning lane or “waiting area” for vehicles looking to turn right from Route 209 into the Carbon County parking lot.

Borough officials said they believed the event operations plan called for the corral area to again be used as a turning lane instead of parking spots, but the county never posted the spots “no parking” before the first two October days of the Fall Foliage Fest last weekend.

“Our sergeant was down there last weekend and thought there was a mistake and started to cone off that area to create the turning lane, but county officials told him at that point that it was going to be used for parking,” Jim Thorpe Police Chief Joe Schatz said.

County Commissioner Chris Lukasevich, however, said he distinctly recalled informing the borough of the decision at the Sept. 27 operations planning meeting.

The corral was set up, he said, as a turning lane in previous years when drivers had to pay cash before entering the county lot and finding a parking space. Since then, the county has installed parking kiosks in the county lot and drivers pay after parking their cars which alleviates traffic flow issues on Route 209, Lukasevich said.

“It wasn’t set up as a corral this year because there is no evidence that those six or seven cars that fit in there significantly reduced any backup or congestion of traffic,” he said. “We just keep traffic flowing. We don’t allow anyone to loiter. Right now we may hand them a small business card that gives five different parking options including a QR code that directs them to Mauch Chunk Lake Park, where they can park and be shuttled into downtown.”

Borough Solicitor James Nanovic said since the spots belong to the county, the borough likely does not have authority to unilaterally establish no parking there.

Nanovic also mentioned a potential issue with the highway occupancy permit for the county lot.

“The question about whether we can do it or not likely rests in what the highway occupancy permit, if there is one, says,” Nanovic said.

Schatz said police preferred the spots to be used as a turning lane on festival weekends because it gets six or seven cars off Route 209 that are waiting to turn right into the lot.

“The other thing is having cars backing in and out of those spots is creating a safety issue when there is that much traffic,” Schatz said. “My officers who were down there this past weekend said it was definitely a concern.”

Lukasevich said while he agrees about cars backing out of the parking spaces in question on to Route 209, “evidence shows that there is very little turnover with the 14 parking spaces.”

“It isn’t sufficient reason to justify losing the most critical shortcoming that we have and that we struggle with as a community during these times, which is parking,” he said.

Council President Greg Strubinger, who initiated discussion about the corral Thursday, said he was disappointed in the county’s decision to allow parking in those spots.

“I guess the county’s rationale is that the revenue from the 14 parking spots outweighs the safety risk it creates,” Strubinger said.

That, Lukasevich countered, is not the case.

“The primary factor in our consideration to not use the corral as a turning lane was never the revenue we would lose,” he said. “That was implied during the council meeting and that isn’t true.”

As for this weekend, Lukasevich said he and Councilman Michael Rivkin came up with a plan to keep the area as parking spaces on Saturday and utilize it as a turning lane on Sunday to help gauge which setup works better.

Lukasevich also said Friday that the Carbon County parking lot above the annex building will also be utilized as vendor parking for the remainder of the festival.