Saying the several signatures on a petition did not represent a consensus on Saturday parking in the downtown area, the Laconia City Council has put the onus of finding a solution that makes the most people happy back on the downtown's merchants and property owners.

Although the councilors on Monday agreed that something should be done, they also were of the mind that the ideas for what that is should come from a study by the planning department as well as broad-based input from the people whose customers, clients or tenants use the parking.

The latter, said City Manager Eileen Cabanel, was lacking in the petition signed by 10 businesses/property owners, which was not a consensus "of anything."

The petition sought a variation of a trial measure approved by the council back in April that eliminated the restriction on Saturday parking along downtown streets and in one municipal parking lot.

The council took the action after receiving a petition signed by 34 people who own property or businesses or who work downtown. The petitioners said Saturdays were their biggest business days of the week and some customers might not return if they got a $10 parking ticket for exceeding the two-hour limit.

The council was poised to consider going back to the old Saturday parking regulations and, while several councilors said they liked the idea in the petition to continue to limit Main Street parking to two hours but to make city lots all day, they also heeded Cabanel, who warned there was no easy fix.

"I don't think you can come up with a solution" that will satisfy everybody, Cabanel told the council, adding that the current petitioners' potential compromise — while hailed by the council earlier this month — was immediately criticized by other merchants who thought it was a bad plan.

Cabanel advised the council to go back to "the way it was" for the Saturday parking while encouraging downtown business leaders to think about parking solutions, such as validated parking.

Ward 3 Councilor Henry Lipman suggested a mix of free and extended parking and taking a look at using parking meters to produce desired results. He agreed with Cabanel that the petition before the council was not truly representative and that, as to a single vision for downtown parking, "there's not a consensus on anything down there."

Ward 2 Councilor Tom Brown said the city needs to figure out what it wants to build its parking around, adding that, to him, the matter "just seems like it's drifting along" without a resolution.

Bob Hamel of Ward 5 said downtown parking was a conundrum.

"This is something you can kick the can for a hundred miles and never come up with a solution," he said.

Lipman said he would like to see some objective research done as to what the parking situation is and could be downtown because "just relying on opinions is not working."