Establishing a municipal parking authority has been on Jay Miller’s bucket list for years.

Now, a few months before the veteran Jim Thorpe Borough councilman completes his latest term in office, he’s making a push to see it become a reality.

“I think that a parking authority should be established to address parking issues throughout the borough, not just Broadway and West Broadway, although there is an emphasis there, but in the outlying areas as well,” Miller said. “When we have fall foliage and the big events, we see other areas being affected where people are parking and walking down the Movie House Hill, walking down the Packer Hill, or walking across the bridge from the east side.”

Miller said the ultimate intention would be to establish a parking authority and then to start looking into establishing another parking lot in the borough for the short-term, with a long-term goal of building a parking deck.

“It’s a 5- to 10-year plan, but I think this is the way to go so I talked it over with the manager just briefly, and I asked having this on the agenda, to see if council would want to further this and ask the solicitor to look into this,” Miller said.

Increased parking supply was a focal point of the $100,000 parking study completed for Jim Thorpe last year by the Northeast Pennsylvania Alliance.

Jim Thorpe Mayor Michael Sofranko said he’s spoken with Miller and agrees a parking authority is a good idea, but he urged council to do its research and fully understand how such an entity works.

“There are about 26 parking authorities in Pennsylvania, most of them geared toward larger cities,” Sofranko said. “The way parking runs now is all the revenue that is generated from parking fines and so forth goes into your general fund. That would now go to the parking authority as its revenue to keep it going.”

Parking authority employees would handle ticketing.

“When you look at a place like Lancaster, which has a parking authority, their police officers can still handle parking complaints, but where there are kiosks, permit parking and other established areas, that falls totally under the parking authority,” Sofranko said. “They have employees who monitor it 24 hours a day.”

The borough is getting set to vote on a permit parking ordinance next week that would allow residents of Broadway, West Broadway, High Street, Race Street, Hill Road and Quarry Street to purchase an annual permit that allows them to park from 5-415 W. Broadway or anywhere on High Street without receiving a ticket. Motorists who do not have a permit and park in those areas would be subject to a $50 fine. The ordinance does permit the borough to issue guest passes valid for a 24-hour period.

The ordinance is aimed at opening more spots for local residents on West Broadway and High Street.

“This is not Washington, D.C., where we’re going to add another big, bloated agency, just because we want to,” Miller said. “It’s not going to be big and it’s not going to be bloated. But we have a unique situation here and I think a parking authority would go a long way to helping us address it.”

Council President Greg Strubinger said Thursday night he supported the idea of sending the parking authority information to the borough manager and solicitor for further discussion.