Portage council adopts code changes including 48-hour street-parking limit

Portage 'The Portage City Council on Tuesday adopted amendments to the city code, Chapter 24, Article 5 (community quality, safety, sanitation and health), approving a 48-hour limit on parking certain vehicles on city streets.

City Manager Pat McGinnis described the ordinance as a technical cleanup that corrects previous omissions and clarifies language, saying, "this is kind of mopping up some previous language that was introduced, and there were some inadvertent omissions, and those have been corrected now." McGinnis told the council the amendment had been circulated in advance and was ready for action.

Council member Burns raised the principal enforcement concern cited during deliberations: that a strict 48-hour rule could penalize legitimate short-term visitors. "I'm envisioning a pretty reasonable scenario where somebody has a visitor come, Thursday night, and by Sunday they're ticketed, and it takes public safety resources to enforce this type of ordinance," Burns said, urging council to revisit whether the 48-hour limit should require that parked vehicles be inoperative before enforcement.

Burns moved to adopt the amendment and the motion was supported. The council approved the ordinance by roll call with affirmative votes recorded for Councilmembers Olmstead, Pearson, Randall, Young, Burns, Ledbetter and Miller.

City Manager McGinnis and Council members agreed to return the operability/enforcement question for further consideration before March (the council discussed addressing the matter before the spring season), and McGinnis said staff would provide more information to schedule that follow-up.

The ordinance text in the transcript identifies the 48-hour restriction as part of a broader clean-up of parking and right-of-way language; specific enforcement procedures and any fines were not detailed in the meeting record and were described only as "clarified" by staff.