Free Parking for employees of Old Town Salinas
A parking ticket costs $38 if found in violation of the two hour parking limit. Most employees of old town are unable to move their car every two hours as they are working. Most old town employees only make on average $12 an hour. They work about 4 to 8 hours a day, which means their average daily wage is $72. If they are given a parking permit more than twice a week they lose a day or more of wages. Lower income individuals usually can not afford to waste a day of wages, this makes their wallets tight and their stress high, especially during covid and times of economic lows. 
A parking permit for Old Town Salinas costs $30 to $45 a month. Though this may seem reasonable for most, old town employees have low wages and high living costs. Forcing them to pay for a parking permit limits their ability to save money and pay bills. Not only is the lose of daily wages harmful to the employees it hurts the businesses. The owners have to let their employees leave every two hours for 5 to 15 minutes during periods of high traffic. The more tickets an employee gets, the less likely they will stay employees of Old Town. This causes a high employee turn over and the businesses have extra expenses due to employee training. 
Our economy can only flourish when the lower classes have enough disposable income. When the city takes money from the lower classes they stop spending money on other businesses and a cycle forms. The first step to end the cycle and grow a healthier economy is to allow the lower income groups to grow their wealth. Free parking permits for employees will begin this growth. 

Solving the problem
There are many ways to solve this problem. The easiest is to allow Old Town employees to register for free parking permits. The business owners will keep forms on hand to give to new and current employees; this puts the responsibility on the employees to turn in the form. If they do not follow the proper procedures to obtain the parking permit they will be fined the $38. It is a simple additive to the parking permit services and does not add additional stress on to the offices processes.
Waiving the parking permit fees gives Old Town employees more disposable income breaking the cycle of debt and poverty.

Creating a flourishing economy takes time. It starts with small steps made in a way that the city/state can expand from. As a community, let’s extend a helping hand and start moving forward.