The City of Jackson is hitting pause on a plan for a metered pay-to-park system downtown.
After decades of time-limited free parking, funded by an assessment on business owners, parking meters were expected to be installed and operating by July.
But Mayor Daniel Mahoney says the decision to wait on the new system came after a meeting he had recently with local business owners.
"We have found that the business owners would rather pay the assessment than for that cost to be passed directly to the citizens who are patronizing our downtown in Jackson,” Mahoney said.
Mahoney says he isn’t sure what costs, if any, have been incurred in preparing for the metered system.
He says the Jackson City Council will have a special meeting next week to discuss the issue. It's set for Wednesday, March 26 at 7 p.m.
"We want to be able to take that information under consideration and have a discussion about it as a full council," said Mahoney. "That way, we can kind of talk about both directions all together."