Special County Parking For Veterans Being Eliminated

Faced with a stingy budget, El Paso County leaders have made cut after cut to make ends meet.

Among other things, they’ve redone holiday schedules, trimmed spending at the sheriff’s office, and took on a four-day work week during the summer.

But one cut that’s so far gone unnoticed isn’t sitting well with local veterans.

Free parking at the county courthouse has long been offered to some groups of veterans, those awarded the purple heart, the medal of honor and disabled vets.

But starting next month – right before Veterans day – the county will begin charging those groups.

It’s a move some call a slap in the face.

“It is not a slap in the face, it is not intended to be. It’s intended to be a responsible decision to our tax payers,” said County Commissioner Anna Perez.

Perez was part of a committee formed to review county parking fees, including which groups should be allowed to park free of charge,”Disabled and handicapped people, non-veterans that say that’s the kind of privilege we need too, so it was a fairness question.”

It was a fairness question because other veterans groups also wanted to be included.

So in fairness, the committee decided to make everyone pay.

But veteran and purple heart recipient Mike Batkin said veterans deserve to be an exception, “The veterans have already paid their dues, they’ve already paid much more than the average person.”

Commissioner Perez says not only fairness, but dollars were also an issue.

The free parking privilege was costing the county $7-9,000 a year.

“I feel bad, all of us at commissioners court feel bad for some of the very difficult decisions we’ve had to make,including people losing their jobs,” said Perez.

And with over 30 veteran and military related license plates, Perez says a tough decision had to be made, “You compound it with 30 different veteran groups then we might face some serious fiscal impact with the garages.”

Batkin thinks they could have found another way, “The symbolism of taking that away and what that says to our veteran community is a very powerful symbol.”

Batkin also has an issue that there’s no sign warning veterans as you enter the county’s downtown parking garage, but Commissioner Perez says that should be fixed with a sign before November 1st.

Special Note: The medal of honor category is largely symbolic. It’s only been awarded ten times for acts of heroism since the end of the Vietnam conflict – and nine of those ten were posthumous awards.