Forum To Start Charging Employees For Parking

Hundreds of workers at the St. Pete Times Forum got an unwelcome surprise this morning when they picked up their paychecks:

Included was a note from management saying it won't offer free employee parking starting March 1.

"You got to be kidding me," Bernice Robinson of Tampa said when she heard the news.

Blame the down economy, which now is trickling down to ticket sales. Average attendance for hockey games is down 10 percent to 20 percent this season.

The move affects 500 to 600 workers, many such as Robinson who work part time before and after events.

Robinson said she's paid $9 an hour as a housekeeping supervisor. At that rate, she'd have to work four hours to pay her parking tab. She plans to look for parking elsewhere.

The Tampa Bay Lightning, who operates the Forum, spelled out three options for employees - a $30 monthly pass, 10 one-day passes for $20 or a $5 one-day pass - to use the lot at Caesar Street and Channelside Drive.

Parking at the city-owned garage next door is $37 a month. The lots under the Selmon Crosstown Expressway charge $30 a month.

"This affects everybody in the building, especially the little people," said Robinson.

Shelli McNeal, another housekeeping worker, said she'll stop using the lot rather than pay. She'll ask her fiancé to drop her off and pick her up.

"I can't afford to lose $30. Losing $30 to me means putting less gas in my car, putting less food on the table and washing my clothes less. That $30 hurts," she said.

Lightning spokesman Bill Wickett said the team leases the Caesar employee lot for $250,000 a year and is asking employees to contribute only $1 a day toward parking.

"Unfortunately it's one of the hard decisions we've had to make," he said. "In a perfect world we'd have all the parking we need for our employees. But the fact of the matter is we're in a downtown environment and it's difficult to get access to a lot of land."