Six merchants testified before the Los Gatos Town Council on May 5 that street closures, coupled with an already sagging economy, have devastated their businesses. During such a fiscally unstable climate, now is not the time to enforce new parking restrictions that would further deter customers from coming downtown, they said.

One component of the town's parking management plan involves color-coded parking zones. Under the existing system, drivers may, without penalty, move their cars one space over once they exceed the time limit at a particular parking space. Implementation of colored zones, however, would prohibit drivers from reparking their cars at any space within the same colored zone that day. This system is already in place for the town's olive zone.

The goal is to promote the turnover of parking spaces, said Town Manager Debra Figone. Enforcement of this system is meant to encourage those who plan on spending a prolonged period of time downtown to park in one of the town's free parking lots so as to free up limited spaces in front of stores for other customers.

But shoppers won't bother looking for another parking space once the time limit is up, Jennifer Renfroe, owner of Cambric of Los Gatos, told the town council. Instead, they will return to their cars and simply drive home or shop at Santana Row, where parking spaces abound, she insisted. "The charm of Los Gatos isn't going to pull people in anymore," she said.

Councilman Joe Pirzynski said the town must discourage the mentality that once a person finds a parking space that space belongs to the customer for the rest of the day.

When the previous town council approved colored zoning at the end of 2001, the plan was met with less resistance from merchants, Renfroe said, because it was during a time when the economy was stronger and parking was actually a problem.

"Parking's not a problem now because we don't have customers," said Adrienne Kerwin, owner of Adrienne's.

Kerwin, whose business was down 30 percent in March 2003 as compared to the same time last year and down 39 percent in April this year—including a 50 to 70 percent drop during the recent two days that Santa Cruz Avenue was partially closed off—has had to take up loans and lay off employees.

"I can't go on much longer like this," she said to council members. "Don't complicate the mess that we have," she said about placing new parking restrictions on a business community already seeing decreased sales due in part to ongoing street work.

With another two years' worth of street work to be done in the downtown area, now is not the time to try to change parking habits, said Greg Stowers, president of the Town of Los Gatos Chamber of Commerce board. Stowers suggested postponing implementation of colored zones until construction is complete.

Both Figone and Scott Seaman, chief of the Los Gatos­Monte Sereno Police Department, said reports about Palo Alto, which has implemented such a colored zoning system, indicated the city has achieved the desired outcome.

Domus owner Margaret Smith begged to differ. "There's a great misperception in Palo Alto. It is not working for merchants," she said.

Smith, who owns another store in Palo Alto, finds customers there feeling more rushed to return to their cars. "In Palo Alto, there isn't the leisurely experience that takes place here," she said.

The next colored zone proposed to go into effect is in the Pecan Grove district, which encompasses the area bounded by Highway 9, University Avenue, Royce Street and N. Santa Cruz Avenue. That zone also applies to a small portion of Almendra, Bachman and Nicholson avenues west of Santa Cruz Avenue.

The town has no intentions of implementing the colored zone without reevaluating the issue in the summer as the streetscape project proceeds, Figone and Seaman both said. Seaman also said the plan has always been to wait until after the streetscape project is complete before implementing more colored zones.

Though implementation of colored zones won't be immediate, discussion of it occurred in conjunction with an update on the streetscape project.

In his report, John Curtis, the town's director of parks and public works, said two factors resulted in delays to work on Grays Lane: rain and the presence of a PG&E electrical vault in the street that must be relocated. While working with PG&E to have the utilities company move its vault, the town can try to work around the vault.

There comes a point, however, when the town can no longer accommodate PG&E, said Mayor Sandy Decker, who suggested the town move the vault and bill PG&E for the labor.

The public works department still anticipates that most of the work will be finished in August, except for what Curtis described as the "less impactful" job of setting up planter boxes and electric lines. This last stage has a target completion date of Sept. 5.

Wary of the possibility of further project delays, Vice Mayor Steve Glickman asked that all work stop by September for the start of the holiday shopping season. Last year the town stopped all work by Oct. 1, according to Curtis.

Margaret Smith noted two holiday seasons near the tail end of the year. Besides Christmas, she said there's another rush for shopping during back-to-school time and that September is a peak month for clothing stores.

After the meeting, Smith questioned the town's estimate that the streetscape project will cost $6 million. She believes the cost is far greater when one factors in the "loss of goodwill with customers and lost economic opportunity" caused by street closures, detours and the perception that the town is constantly under construction.

"What is the true cost of shutting down a town and having summer construction for four consecutive years?" Smith asked.