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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Some state employees could end up working in makeshift offices set up at the Utah State Fair Park beginning in mid-January to free up parking places at the Capitol Complex during the upcoming legislative session.
A new proposal by Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. calls for government employees with laptops and mobile phones to be allowed to set up shop at the fairgrounds for meetings and possibly entire work days.
Parking is always a problem when the Legislature meets, but it has been even more difficult since the Capitol closed for renovation a few months before the 2005 session. Lots have closed and construction workers use much of the on-street parking.
The Capitol Preservation Board meets Thursday to complete parking plans in time for the Jan. 16 start of the 2006 session. The Salt Lake City Council has already approved a new process that will let area neighborhoods impose residential parking restrictions.
"It will be inconvenient, but it won't be incapacitating," the governor's deputy chief of staff and spokesman, Mike Mower, said. "What we have to realize is it's just 45 days."
He said 150 executive branch employees will have to give up parking at the complex during the session. It will be up to each department to decide whether to relocate employees to the fairgrounds during the session, or just use the facility for meetings.
Huntsman has decided to hold proclamation signings at the fairgrounds, Mower said. Typically, the ceremonial events are held in the governor's office and attract large numbers of people.
The estimated price tag for hiring drivers and gassing up state vans to transport workers from the fairgrounds to the Capitol -- where workers can park and car pool to work -- is less than $10,000, Mower said.
The governor's proposal outlines what the executive branch will do to ease congestion as well as offering a few suggestions for the board to consider, including spending $5,000 on a temporary bridge to the complex plaza.
David Hart, executive director of the board overseeing the $200 million renovation project, praised much of the governor's proposal and said it will be reviewed, along with the findings of a parking task force, at Thursday's meeting.
"If they've got money within their budgets and they've got the willpower internally to make adjustments to make things better on Capitol Hill, then that's a great thing to do," Hart said. "It's a pretty responsible plan."
Much of what the board will do Thursday is juggle the allocation of existing parking places among state workers, including those employed by the legislative branch, and the construction crews.
The re-opening of a parking lot on the west side of the complex, expected to be ready by the start of the session, should ease some of the problem.
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Information from: Deseret Morning News, http://www.deseretnews.com
(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
