Townie

When you chat with business owners in downtown Sarasota, they repeatedly mention two big complaints about the city: the homeless and what they see as a lack of available public parking. To get some perspective on the latter, we got in touch with the general manager of Sarasota's Public Parking Division, Susan F. Dodd, and sat down with the 35-year-old Sarasota native outside City Hall. Here's Dodd on:

How many tickets the Division hands out on average:

"It definitely varies, but we'll see an average of about 30 tickets a day. [Parking enforcement officers] can do their job really hard and really well and work eight hours and -- if everyone parks correctly and without violation -- no tickets, so it's real hard to predict."

Whether or not seasonal tourist traffic bumps up the number of violations:

"You'd be surprised. We do see more based on ... the fact that there are more cars out there, but things are more weighted towards our local population in terms of violations than most people would imagine. [Out-of-towners] seem more apt to following the rules ... and they're familiar with different communities, while we've gotten kind of comfortable."

The complaints of downtown business owners:

"Interestingly enough, I've looked back to commission records from like the '20s and '30s or the '40s and '50s onward, and this complaint is consistent throughout. So it's very much a perception issue. Parking's very psychological, very personal, and we have a lot of ideas for improvement, but I suspect that even if we made every improvement we'd like to make that there would still be a lot of complaints. It's kind of the nature of the beast. If you factor in an acceptable amount of walking, then -- for the most part -- everyone can find parking, but to get that primary right-in-front-of-your-location parking can be tough."