The Bremerton City Council has voted this month to replace Diamond Parking and has approved a five-year contract with Imperial Parking, known as Impark.

Rules are rules and the law is the law. I get that. Any company that operates in the parking enforcement industry is never going to be the warm, fuzzy, feel-good community partner whose services are happily received by the residents, workers or visitors of our fair city.

That being said, this decision and vote by the City Council raises the yoke of Diamond Parking tyranny off of those of us that have suffered for far too long under its questionable enforcement practices and the horrible long standing reputation this name provokes.

We now have a clean slate and a fresh start before us on one of the single most important issues that Bremerton needs to deal with. Impark needs to be both wise and fair in its operations and enforcement. The City Council needs to continue moving forward in the solution process with the implementation of a clear and improved complaint policy. Existing laws need to be clarified, adjusted and improved so that parking priority is given to residents parking in front of their own homes or on the streets around their residence as well as implementing improvements to individual business owners and their necessary ability to come and go several times in the same day from their own place of business without ticketing harassment.

Because of the nature and location of our downtown, Bremerton is always going to have parking management issues that do not occur anywhere else in Kitsap County. For downtown Bremerton to be able to draw residents, patrons and visitors to its core, a fair, easy to understand, easy to operate and easy to access parking system needs to be in place.

This may mean the city will have to spend a little more money and time to implement such a system. The users of this system will need to be a little more flexible and tolerant as changes are adapted and learned and bugs are worked out.

In the end an improved system of parking will benefit all of us. I am excited to see that the first large piece of the solution puzzle has been put firmly into place. So much will be happening in downtown Bremerton this summer by way of activities and festivals. Come on down and try it out.

The King (Diamond Parking) is dead, long live the King (Impark).