Following years of discussion about finding solutions to downtown parking, The Poulsbo City Council took action at its March 19 meeting, approving to launch signage changes, employee parking and enforcement this year and to implement paid parking in parts of downtown in the summer of 2026.

The vote passed 6-1, with Councilmember Ed Stern the lone vote against the proposal. “There’s a sense that it’s now or never and I disagree with that,” he said. “The whole idea of staging or phasing allows flexibility that may lead us to a paid parking model, but we get there by implementing carefully.”

Paid parking would be $2 an hour from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. for either six or seven days a week. Revenue collected from paid parking would go toward investing in future downtown parking improvements.

There are 274 parking spaces that are proposed for paid parking, which is about 40% of the city-owned spots downtown. The remaining 60% would remain free parking. Paid parking would be implemented on Anderson Parkway, Front Street to Hostmark Street to the King Olaf parking lot, Jensen Street to Front St. and Iverson Street.

Estimated revenues would be about $900,000 if paid parking is enforced six days a week and about $1 million if enforced seven days a week, documents read.

For employee parking, there are 103 proposed spaces downtown, both city-owned and privately owned. A program of 42 spaces would be established at the King Olaf parking lot with a cost of $20 a month per employee, per documents.

Estimated costs for signage improvements is $30,000. Estimated cost of enforcement is $410,950, which entails contract, city labor, insurance, supplies, License Plate Recognition vehicle and maintenance.

Councilmember Gary McVey recalled when the community was up in arms and opposing the development of College Marketplace, which the council in 2003 voted to implement.

“It was going to be the death of downtown, it was going to be like the worst thing in the world,” he said sarcastically. “Look at where we are today. What if we didn’t have that development up on the hill? We would not have the kinds of stores, consumer goods and services that we have up there. We would not have Olympic College. Imagine what that would look like if that council at that time 22 years ago had not had the political courage to stand up to the majority of the community, who at that point was very opposed to that development.”

He also noted that Poulsbo’s population has almost doubled since the year 2000 and that the Comprehensive Plan says the city should be planning for more than 5,600 more citizens by 2044.

“I think we need option 3 to prepare for the future. If we approve a 20-year Comprehensive Plan without some sort of corresponding plan to improve parking downtown, we should be arrested for legislative malpractice,” McVey said.

Councilmember Rick Eckert agreed with McVey.

“This has been discussed for decades,” he said. “This is not recent. If we don’t pass this resolution…as far as I’m concerned it is malfeasance.”