The cost to park on the street in the East Village may double this fall if Des Moines moves ahead with a pilot project aimed at discouraging long-term, on-street parking in the busy commercial district. Mackenzie Elmer/The Register


Can the city of Des Moines do any more to irritate, annoy and drive its citizens crazy? They start charging on Saturday at local parking ramps and they initiate the ridiculous parking arrangements in the East Village. They drive the homeless out of the woods so they can sell out to greedy developers. Neighborhoods get short-changed in favor of downtown high-rises. So what else can they do to betray the citizenry and sell out to powerful corporate interests?

Middle- and lower-class working people better remember these affronts come election time next year. It's time for a complete change in city hall. There is such a thing as humanitarian governing which is apparently a foreign concept in the nouveau-riche Des Moines, Iowa.

Mike Wilson, Des Moines

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