Four months after El Paso County reopened its parking garage at Tejon and Costilla streets after adding three floors, county officials wonder why they bothered.Though 45 more spaces are rented monthly today than before it closed in May for construction, less than half the 781 spaces are spoken for.”It’s disappointing,” said county security chief Rick Leffler who oversees the county’s three parking garages. “We would like to use a lot more than that.”County Commissioner Dennis Hisey isn’t just disappointed. He says it’s “ridiculous” the city of Colorado Springs’ forced the county to spend $6.2 million enlarging the garage.”We all commented on how ridiculous it was that we couldn’t get the occupancy permit for the courthouse without the additional (parking) space,” he said.The county was required by the city’s development regulations to build the three-story garage, which opened in June 2006 with 325 spaces, to provide adequate parking when the Terry R. Harris Judicial Complex was expanded a block north of the garage.When the county finished the top two floors of the courthouse, more parking was needed for the additional employees and people using the bigger courthouse.”We weren’t full before that, so we knew we wouldn’t be full after that,” Hisey said of the garage’s three-story expansion. “I commented several times there are other places I would rather spend that money.”When the garage opened in 2006, not many parked there because people didn’t know about it, Leffler said. Fliers were posted in the courthouse pointing out it was cheaper to park there than nearby city garages, drawing some more business.The county charges 75 cents an hour, $5 a day and $40 a month. The city charges the same hourly rate, but $6.75 per day and $60 a month.When the garage closed last year so the county could add three floors, about 310 spaces were reserved, Leffler said, most of them county and courthouse employees.The garage reopened Oct. 1, but the 50 people on a waiting list had disappeared amid the sour economy, and about 40 county and courthouse employees didn’t return. Some had been laid off while others chose to park blocks away without paying, he said. Street parking without meters can be found three block away on East Costilla or South Cascade Avenue and four blocks away on Moreno Avenue.Today, roughly 355 spaces are reserved, and from 20 to 60 jurors use the garage daily.The county will be about $3,500 in the red this year operating its three garages, a loss that doesn’t include payments on the debt on the Costilla garage. Besides Costilla, the county runs the garage on Sahwatch Street next to Pikes Peak Center, which is 75 percent to 80 percent reserved, and the garage south of the 105 E. Vermijo Ave. county office building where only employees park.The county doesn’t subsidize employee parking, whereas the city pays $20 a month to the city parking authority for each employee who parks in city garages at the $50 monthly rate. The employee pays the balance through deductions from paychecks.

Right to left, Fred Draney, Neil Ridenour, Doug Simpson and John Megow delivered a singing Valentine to Kelly Morgan on Saturday. Photo by KEVIN KRECK, THE GAZETTE