YOUNGSTOWN — With it being more than a year since a downtown on-street parking enforcement contract was terminated, city officials may be moving forward on a plan to hire a different firm.

But how enforcement would be done and by what company remains unresolved.

City council’s parking committee met Tuesday for the first time since February to again take up the issue. The committee recommended Tuesday that city council at its Sept. 17 meeting permit the board of control to advertise for proposals for parking enforcement services.

That came at the request of Charles Shasho, the city’s deputy director of public works. Council had referred the initial request back in June to the parking committee.

Before Shasho’s request, the committee heard a presentation from Robert Montgomery, Northern Ohio area manager for Premium Parking, about what his company could do for downtown parking enforcement — both on-street and in parking lots.

Shasho said he wasn’t pleased that the presentation was made before the city could seek proposals.

“It gives me some level of discomfort to have a vendor come in at this time because we’re pending an advertisement,” Shasho said. “It would be almost like discussing a project and having a potential bidder come to the meeting and present something.”

He added: “It’s about discussing the scope of work when other vendors don’t have the same access to the information.

After proposals are submitted, Shasho said a committee would hear presentations and choose the best vendor.

The legislation that was moved to the parking committee by council in June included a maximum $100,000 cost, which Shasho said was a “placeholder” amount and it wouldn’t cost that much.

“Based upon a menu of a selection of services we don’t really know what it’s going to cost,” Shasho said.

But after Montgomery said there are options in which a company could take a percentage of the parking fees collected in lieu of an upfront flat fee, the committee members said the plan would be to remove the $100,000 maximum cost from the legislation when a vote is taken next week.

Councilman Julius Oliver, D-1st Ward, who asked Montgomery to give the presentation, said, “I think it’s the perfect time to put an ordinance on the agenda to go out for” requests for proposals. “We gave the public an example of what could happen. I don’t think it’s a conflict there at all. I don’t think we need to discuss the actual scope of services.”

The administration wants to find ways to monitor on-street parking, how to pay for enforcement as well as the expense of installing kiosks for people to use to pay for parking or to pay by phone, Shasho said Tuesday — and has said for months.

The city discontinued its contract with ABM Parking on enforcement after it removed all of its meters in June 2024.

There is no enforcement of hourly parking in downtown resulting in workers parking their vehicles for the entire day in spots, Shasho said.

“People are just camping out in parking spaces now downtown,” Shasho said. “They’ve gotten wind that there’s nobody enforcing it.”

When ABM was used, the city was paying about $10,000 a month for enforcement and only $2,000 in tickets were issued per month.

Oliver said he’s got at least a couple of parking tickets that he will never pay because the city’s clerk of courts doesn’t do anything about enforcement.

Montgomery said that his company could contract with a third party that would handle enforcement, including locking a tire on those who habitually refuse to pay parking tickets and releasing the vehicle only after those fines are paid.