The city of Sterling wants to know from residents and businesspeople whether parking needs are being met in the downtown business district.

Two separate surveys, one for shoppers and diners and one for business interests in the downtown area, are now active online. Responses will be gathered through 5 p.m. March 17.

“This is a way to make sure we have input from both the business owners and the people who are patronizing the downtown business area,” City Manager Scott Shumard said.

The responses from those surveys will be used to determine the handling of downtown parking going forward. The survey for business owners is available through City Hall, and the survey for shoppers and residents is available on the City of Sterling Facebook page.

“Are they not coming because we don’t have parking spots or because parking enforcement is upside down, and they can’t park in certain places and the places where they want to park, they can’t?” Josh Johnson, Ward 3 alderman, asked at a recent meeting of the city’s parking permit subcommittee.

That subcommittee consists of Sterling city officials, Police Chief Pat Bartels, Johnson, Alderman at Large Jim Wise and downtown business interests.

The committee met in February to continue discussions over concerns about what some business managers and owners see as a confusing mixture of free, permitted and limited-hour parking throughout the downtown business district.

Johnson’s question was to Rebecca Munoz-Ripley, executive director of the YWCA of the Sauk Valley. Munoz-Ripley shared concerns about downtown parking challenges.

“I have board members from all over Lee and Whiteside counties, and the ones who don’t live in Sterling, when we talk about this at our board meetings, they say that parking is one of the big reasons they don’t come to Sterling to do anything. It’s just too difficult,” Munoz-Ripley said.

Concerns from businesses on Light Street about parking and parking enforcement reflect the larger concerns about parking and parking availability, Wise said, adding that they could be dealt with as a separate issue.

“The issue with Light Street, I see as a separate issue. Light Street used to be an alley, and we created a business development area. You have businesses there that are fresh and new. The request there was that they wanted two designated parking spots for each business or address, which, in my opinion, isn’t unreasonable,” Wise said.

Kelle Bliss, manager of Coco’s Prom and the neighboring Savy Chic Boutique, both Light Street businesses, handed out comments from social media about the parking downtown.

“It’s driving businesses away. I don’t know if you all realize how bad of an issue the parking is downtown for the customers, not the employees or the employers, the customers that you want to bring to Sterling,” Bliss said.

Shumard said the many issues that the committee will have to address, in any parking reform, include availability, time limits, parking for tenants of downtown residences, as well as enforcement.

“Everyone wants the prime parking spot, so how do we prioritize convenience to staff vs. customers going in and out? You have salons where you have a three-hour customer vs. you have Rock Star Donuts, where people might be there just for 10 or 15 minutes and then they’re out,” Shumard said.

Shumard said the committee also will have to address longer-term parking and 24-hour parking spot availability and enforcement.

“We have tenants downtown, and we want to have more floors developed, so we want to be able to accommodate that 24-hour thing - but how do we do that without creating a nuisance for other people and having that become a storage area or camping spot?” Shumard said.

Johnson said he hopes the survey responses will help the committee and the council come up with a plan that works for the largest number of people.

“No matter what we do, we’re going to get complaints. We can either say, as a city, that parking is a human problem, you guys go deal with it, or we can say we’re going to micromanage everything and we’re going to write all these $20 tickets to anybody and everybody who comes to town and we have a terrible image. I am tired of the terrible image that we have,” Johnson said.