After pressing for a solution to parking problems in the City of Butler, the city council on Sept. 9 rejected the latest proposal from the parking authority - a single-level parking deck built over the South McKean Street surface lot.

With that rejection, there is a frustrating sense that no solution to widely acknowledged parking problems will be found between the council and the parking authority. The lack of progress on addressing the parking problem is especially discouraging given that the parking situation in the Diamond Street area will be getting worse when the 120-space surface lot on East Cunningham Street is lost to construction of a new county prison.

The city council's Sept. 9 rejection of the parking authority's request to back a $1.1 million bond to construct a single-level parking deck over the McKean Street parking lot was accompanied by little discussion. Such an important issue deserves more discussion - and that might come this week as the parking deck issue is again expected to be on the council's agenda.

No single plan will provide the perfect solution to Butler's parking problems. Building a deck over the McKean Street lot will, however, provide some relatively quick and relatively cheap relief to parking in the Diamond area, which is home to the highest concentration of professional, service and governmental offices in the city.

Opting for a 65-space deck at McKean Street still gives the city the option of building a deck - or perhaps two decks - at other locations in the city. Building a single, multistory tier garage would probably condense all of the parking authority's new parking spaces for the next 20 years at a single location.

Apart from the pros and cons of the McKean Street lot versus the Diamond Street lot, located just one block to the north, there is a sense that the deck idea suffers by its association with William Morgan, owner of the Morgan Center office building. Morgan's building is home to Citizens National Bank, the architectural firm of Burt Hill Kosar Rittelmann Associates and a number of law offices and other professional offices. Some on the council have suggested they object to a deck on McKean Street because it appears to benefit just Morgan.

This debate should have nothing to do with who presented the idea and everything to do with solving Butler's parking woes and strengthening the downtown business climate.

But by providing more convenient parking to the many tenants in Morgan's building as well as to workers and visitors to other, nearby offices, the addition of a parking deck on the McKean Street lot would benefit many people and help boost the competitiveness of Butler's premier office district.

The demand for parking around the Diamond area is obvious, and if the parking authority were to offer some leased parking spaces on the new deck located next to Morgan Center, as opposed to permit parking now offered elsewhere in the city, higher revenue-per-space could be generated. Morgan and others have suggested many tenants would pay a premium for such parking, and the option for additional revenue should not be ignored by the parking authority.

Building a parking deck over the McKean Street lot clearly would be most convenient for Morgan tenants. But it would be nearly as convenient for anyone working in one of the other Diamond Street buildings.

All of these issues should be explored at this week's council meeting. Beyond further discussion of the pros and cons of the current proposal, those opposed to building a deck over the McKean Street lot, specifically Councilmen Joe Bratkovich, Charles Savannah and Mitch Ufner, should explain what specific problems they have with the plan - and how they propose to resolve parking problems in that part of the city.

A representative from the Parking Authority should attend the meeting to answer questions and reiterate the authority's reasoning behind proposing the McKean Street deck.

Though this parking discussion has been going on for months, it wouldn not hurt to review the advantages of each site as well as any viable alternative solutions to what the authority is proposing.

Parking around the Diamond has been a problem for years, and it will only get worse. The idea of a lower-cost parking deck is an idea worthy of additional serious, immediate consideration.