Parking in downtown Poulsbo has been an airless tire in need of a permanent patch for years. To be sure, it’s gotten plenty of hot air blown into it over this time frame. Plenty. But no one solution has been followed through to completion since downtown business owners began griping about it — sometime in the Jurassic Period.

Back then business owners Frederick Flintstone and Barnebus Rubble were reportedly complaining that the brand new four-door Obsidians were too large for spaces created for the older, smaller two-door Quartz Classics and therefore customers were heading south to the Argentumdale Mall.

Eons and epochs have passed and though stopping cars has become much easier on motorists’ feet, not much progress has been made for Poulsbo’s downtown corridor.

In short, it’s been the talk of the town for a while but nobody seems to be walking the talk. One-waying 3rd Avenue and building a parking garage have been chatted up since Brontosaurus Burgers were the rage, yet nothing has been done.

Anderson Parkway is a mess.

King Olav is a zoo.

And the chances of finding parking on Front Street during lunchtime are about as rare as coming across a 50 percent off sale on Saber-Tooth Tiger fur coats.

Will 2008 be the year, this long-, long-, long-standing issue finally gets resolved? Let’s hope so.

Parking in downtown Poulsbo deserves more than studies that ultimately serve as dust collectors on some forgotten book shelf. (Rumor has it the first such plan was indeed etched in stone and signed by Mr. Slate himself.)

So, a challenge to our next city council:

Let’s make a concerted effort to make a final decision on this ongoing dilemma next year. The issue has not only been talked to death. It’s been buried six-feet under and currently sports a crumbling tombstone.

If not in 2008, when? Because at this glacial pace, future Poulsbo City Councilman Elroy Jetson could very well be the deciding vote.