January marks the one-year anniversary of Jim Thorpe Borough instituting permit parking rules along West Broadway and borough council is seeking input on how the ordinance is working.

The ordinance, aimed at giving downtown residents a better chance at finding a parking space near their home, allows those who live on Broadway, West Broadway, High Street, Race Street, Hill Road and Quarry Street to purchase an annual permit for $15.

The permit grants them a chance to park from 5-415 W. Broadway or anywhere on High Street without receiving a ticket. Motorists who do not have a permit and park in those areas are subject to a $50 fine.

“There have been some suggestions for changes along the way,” Council President Greg Strubinger said, “but we as a council wanted to let things play out for one full year and then come back to it. We’re now at the point where we will be reviewing this and want to solicit those comments and suggestions.”

Thoughts on permit parking can be submitted by email to secretary@jtborough.org or by mail to Jim Thorpe Borough at 101 E. Tenth St., Jim Thorpe, PA, 18229. All comments must include the author’s name and address.

Borough Manager Maureen Sterner said all comments are due by Feb. 27.

Several pitches for ordinance changes were made shortly after the rules went into effect. Representatives from the Jim Thorpe Tourism Agency requested the ordinance only be in effect on weekday evenings, weekends and federal holidays. That, JTTA members said, would allow relief for business owners during the day to give employees and customers opportunities to park in those spots.

Council has also heard of the successes of permit parking from the residents who live on West Broadway.

Jim Gilmore previously told council that those advocating limiting the ordinance to weeknights and weekends are operating under the misconception that everyone works a 9-5, Monday through Friday job.

“We tried for years for this ordinance so that we would have a chance to park, not in front of our house, but just somewhere near our house,” Gilmore said. “We couldn’t go away weekends before. I think it’s working out good so far.”

During a borough council meeting Thursday, Joan Morykin, who runs Café Arielle at the Stabin Museum at 268 W. Broadway, said residents with permits are not using all the open spots in that general area.

“Our sales revenue is down 22% since this ordinance was enacted and there are constantly open spots in front of our business,” she said. “People will start driving up West Broadway and see the permit parking signs and they turn around before they even get up to us. We employ kids working their way through college and this is a definite hardship financially.”

Jim Thorpe Police reported 236 permit parking tickets issued for the year, with the majority of them coming before June.

“I think people got used to seeing the enforcement and they knew if they didn’t have a permit and parked there, they were getting a ticket,” Sofranko said. “It’s kind of like moving your car for the snow plow. The first snow event there are a whole bunch of tickets and then by the third or fourth one you are down to a couple of cars that don’t move.”

During the summer, Strubinger said council would take into account all of the comments it gets on the ordinance and then consider putting any revisions up for a vote.

“We took a lot of things into consideration when finalizing this,” he said. “We’re not saying things won’t change, but we needed to give it time to evaluate things. If something isn’t working, we’ll look at it. We knew this wasn’t going to be perfect on the first try.”