Downtown residents and property owners urge action after repeated safety complaints at Owensboro parking garage

Several downtown residents and property owners raised safety concerns about the city-owned downtown parking garage during the Owensboro City Commission’s Sept. 2 public comment period, asking for more police presence and repairs to cameras and the elevator.

"I've sat on the roof and watched this stuff go on for hours, and I never see a police officer," resident Steve Norton told the commission. He said people race inside the garage late into the night, hang off sides of the structure, drop bottles, use stairwells to gather and sometimes skateboard in traffic lanes. "We're gonna have to do something or somebody's gonna get killed in that garage," Norton said.

Property owner Phil Clark, who said he bought his downtown building in 2005, told the commission the alley that connects to Smothers Park has accumulated trash and a pattern of unsafe activity. "It does need to be addressed... We are part of the community. I'm happy to help. We all are. But we need — we can't do it on our own," Clark said.

Laura Clark, who previously lived downtown, said she and her husband regularly called police and that cameras in the garage are too old to provide clear images. "When you're living there, any drug deal feels like a big drug deal when you're watching it from your backdoor," she said, and added that she felt safer parking on the street than in the garage.

Speakers asked the commission to increase enforcement and fix equipment; several also suggested the city address trash pickup and camera reliability. City staff and the police chief were present in the meeting but made no immediate operational commitments during public comment. The mayor closed the public-comment segment after the three speakers and continued with the agenda.