During a meeting that at times was heated and tense, the Third Ward Steering Committee decided Thursday to continue plans to develop a parking survey for residents.

Before the neighborhood adjacent to lower campus decides what kind of parking regulations to initiate, the neighborhood organization wants to figure out if people in the neighborhood believe changes need to be made.

Maria Henly, 121 Park Place, has been working with a sub-committee in developing preliminary questions for the survey, and she presented those questions at the meeting in the North Conference Room in City Hall.

“We just wanted to assess if there is a problem,” Henly said. “Where is the problem? When is it occurring?”

After about an hour of debate, the commission decided to give the Traffic, Parking and Pedestrian Safety Committee the freedom to use whatever means necessary to develop the survey.

One of the main issues about the survey was whether it should be distributed to property owners or residents of each property.

The Steering Committee argued whether the landlords or tenants should get to fill out the survey. Then, the issue was how many people in a household should be polled.

One person on the committee suggested that the property owners be surveyed, because they are paying taxes on the buildings. This statement drew a reaction from Vice Chancellor Andy Soll.

“It’s a fallacy to say renters aren’t paying taxes,” he said. “The homeowners are paying taxes from the rent they collect.

“You should not disenfranchise citizens.”

Another sticking point was how many in a household should fill out the survey. There was argument that everybody in a household should respond, even if it is a house with 8 or 10 renters. Others argued that it should be one survey for each household.

After the lengthy discussion about who should be involved with the survey, Soll suggested that faculty from the political science department at UW-Eau Claire could sit in and help develop questions for the survey that were neutral and unbiased.

Henly stressed that the survey was in the preliminary stage only. The goal is to have the survey completed in time to distribute to residents next semester, so residents can evaluate the parking situation while school is in session.