City To Charge $10 Parking For Trump Event; Didn’t Charge For Dem Convention
At the behest of city manager Isaiah Hugley, CCG recently announced they will be charging a $10 parking fee in all city lots for the upcoming GOP Convention featuring President Donald J. Trump. However, the city did not charge parking fees for the democrat convention held here last year. Explore the full story to see yet another example of how CCG openly discriminates against conservative politics.
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An artistic expression of President Donald J. Trump, superimposed on a colorized image of the Convention & Trade Center in Columbus, Georgia. The city recently announced they will be charging a $10 parking fee during the upcoming GOP event featuring Trump, though the city did not charge any fees for the democrat convention held here last year.
Image Credit:
Muscogee Muckraker
By
Muscogee Muckraker
Published
June 1, 2023
Updated
June 1, 2023 4:11 PM
ET

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UPDATE 6/1/2023 4:10 P.M. — We have just received an email from Councilor Tyson Begly which reads as follows:

“Special Event Parking Fees (Passed but Reconsidered): There was a lot of discussion regarding a proposed new resolution to "allow parking fees to be charged in all parking garages and parking lots owned by the City in the Uptown Zoning District and the Central Riverfront Zoning District to include the RiverCenter Garage for certain special events that are anticipated to create extraordinary parking demand and public safety concerns". The resolution was prompted by the upcoming GOP convention, as the event team suggested that implementing a parking fee would enhance security by limiting the number of unauthorized individuals attending for free. City Council had various concerns, such as the sudden implementation of parking fees affecting the Miss Georgia competition scheduled for the same weekend, as well as ensuring fairness in selecting events to charge for parking. Initially, the resolution was passed based on the security considerations, but after conducting further research, it was reconsidered. Consequently, there will be no parking fees for next week's events, and the future plan will be revisited on June 13th.”

The needle has been moved.

Stay with the Muckraker as we continue coverage of this issue.

Originally story follows:

COLUMBUS, Ga. — The Columbus Consolidated Government recently announced that they will be charging a $10 parking fee for people attending the GOP event featuring President Donald J. Trump next weekend from June 9-10 at the downtown Convention & Trade Center.

The $10 fee will be required for any and all parking in all city-owned lots, garages, and parking decks throughout the downtown area where the event is to be held.

However, the city did not charge any fees whatsoever for attendees at last year’s democrat convention in August 2022.

The one-sided revenue requirement appears to be on a rather obvious political slant.

The request for the ‘GOP-Only’ parking fee was made by city manager Isaiah Hugley during the May 30 city council meeting. Hugley framed his request to city council as a “requirement for public safety,” suggesting that having to pay a $10 parking fee would somehow prevent ill-intended people from attending the event.

If you have an IQ greater than that of a toaster oven, you can plainly see right through Hugley’s poorly-masked charade. It does not take much to see the obvious attempt to limit attendance while also generating revenue for the city: both of which are major items of priority for Hugley.

Many city councilors voiced this very sentiment themselves during the meeting, saying they did not believe for one second that having to pay a parking fee would prevent bad actors from attending. Several councilors effectively called the idea ridiculous.

Nonetheless, after some heated discussion, the Columbus City Council approved the request by a vote and a $10 parking fee will now be required in all city-owned lots during the event.

Last year’s democrat convention held on August 27, 2022 had no such parking fees whatsoever.

The city’s one-sided approach to literally mandating conservatives to pay a fee in order to attend a political event while not also upholding the same standard for democrats is arguably a 14th Amendment Equal Protection case just waiting to happen.

This article is neither written for or against President Donald J. Trump. 

This article is, however, written for the upholding of true equal protection under the law, and against one-sided political corruption by a local government.

Share this with everyone you know.

Facts are stubborn things — and we’ll keep publishing them, whether city officials like them or not.

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© 2023 Muscogee Muckraker. All rights reserved.

Be sure to follow Muscogee Muckraker on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to see all the muck that’s fit to print as it breaks throughout the coming week.

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