Butler is looking at new ways to turn a profit from the city’s parking assets.

Monetization of the city’s parking, including the parking meters and parking garages, was discussed at Tuesday’s city council meeting at the city building.

Evan Weiss, of the consulting firm HJA Strategies, spoke at the meeting.

“The idea behind monetization is you have excess cash flow in your parking systems,” he said.

Weiss said the firm usually works with municipalities that have been designated Act 47, meaning they are financially distressed.

Butler is not an Act 47 municipality.

“I see this as a viable option for the city before we get to Act 47,” said Butler Mayor Tom Donaldson.

Weiss said the parking monetization would be “to use parking as an economic development tool,” and that it can be done multiple ways.

HJA Strategies would attempt to attract potential investors, either private or public, to either manage, lease or buy the city’s parking.

Under the first option, the city would maintain ownership while the investor took over management of the city’s parking.

Under the second option, the city would lease parking for a previously agreed upon number of years to an investor while maintaining ownership of the parking assets. The city would be paid a fee up front, as well as be paid an annual stipend.

Under the third option, the city would sell its parking assets outright to an investor, who would then own and operate the city’s parking.

In 2016, Scranton made a deal to lease its parking to a nonprofit organization for $32 million up front. Weiss indicated during the meeting that the lease option may be preferable for Butler.

Regardless of the option chosen, Weiss said the cost of parking in the city would likely go up.

When a concerned Butler resident asked city council about rising parking rates at the meeting, Donaldson responded by noting that the investor would also upgrade the city’s parking assets at no cost to the city.

Weiss shared his sentiment.

“The hope would be to really modernize the parking system,” he said.

Weiss said the process of making the parking monetization happen could take more than a year.

“You want to make sure the final negotiation is airtight,” he said.

All of the city council members were open to the idea. Councilman Kathy Kline spoke of doing “due diligence,” but was interested in the idea.

“It’s got possibilities,” she said.

Councilman Michael Walter also was for the idea, but said the council should look at other firms aside from HJA Strategies.

“I would feel we’d be remiss to look at just one vendor on this, and it could affect generations so we need to be careful,” he said.

Donaldson said the financial return had to be “right” for the city to invest in parking monetization, but spoke in favor of the option given the city’s financial difficulties.

Councilman Kenny Bonus also spoke in favor of council taking its time with the decision.

“We’re going to have to do a lot of due diligence, because it’s a major undertaking that could serve to economically benefit the city,” he said.

Councilman Corey Roche said that it didn’t look like HJA Strategies was in any rush, either.

“It’s not like they’re trying to ram this down our throats,” he said.

“What if you don’t do anything?” he said. “That’s a guaranteed failure. We’re guaranteed failure if we don’t do something. This is about the only option we have around here.”