Whomever they are, those whose job it is to identify and help deal with problems that could effect the future of downtown San Diego as a viable employment center need look no farther than where they parked their cars this morning before walking into their offices.

Joining the list of problems facing businesses in San Diego — along with soaring energy prices, water costs, housing costs, commuter traffic congestion and gasoline prices — is increasing parking prices downtown and in the University Town Center area.

We have little ability at the local level to influence the factors that plague our region’s economy and quality of life. Solutions to these issues are well above the pay grades of most of our city’s civic and business leaders. We have the control — and indeed need to exercise some — to do something about the shortage of parking and gouging on the part of parking companies and building owners who daily fleece the pockets of employers, employees, customers and anybody else who finds it necessary to park in a downtown building or parking lot.

The recent hikes in monthly parking fees in some parking lots and buildings would embarrass even the greediest electricity provider. One surface parking lot owner in the downtown area increased the parking fee from $100 to $180 a month, an 80 percent increase in a 30-day period. I’m sure that’s one of several such increases being shoved down the throats of parking patrons throughout the downtown area.

Such plundering, however, is the tip of the parking crisis iceberg that threatens to sink downtown as a competitive employment center. Consider the city’s onerous ratio of one parking space per 1,000-square feet of leased space in downtown locations, compared to the suburbs where four spaces per 1,000 square feet is the norm. Consider the relative dearth of new parking facilities needed to accommodate growth and the crunch in inventory that permits owners to loot their parking customers. Even what additional capacity is coming on line carries a heavy price to pay. In one situation, the parking facility operator contends he needs to increase monthly rents substantially at existing lots in order to help finance the construction of a new parking structure he’s building.

It’s not that much better in the La Jolla Village-University Town Center area where building owners are routinely sticking it to their tenants. Fully occupied buildings there have made free and abundant parking a distant memory.

Not so in the suburbs where downtown and La Jolla Village-area employers, including at least two downtown-based technology companies, are relocating their businesses and practices. Parking is abundant, free or very nominally priced in these outer locales. Despite all the hype about doing business downtown and in other densely occupied locales, employers are increasingly concerned about being able to do business at all in the 92101, 92122, and 92123 Zip codes.

The parking crisis our city faces implores me and other downtown advocates to plea for the assistance of political and civic policy makers. We need realistic solutions, not harebrained theories. The notion that limited or expensive parking will encourage people to use mass transit is nothing short of idiotic. Yes, there are some who commute on buses and the trolley and one would hope the number would continue to grow. However, we need to deal with the reality most people — employers, customers, and workers — are going to drive automobiles to and from work and pleasure. If we don’t build enough reasonably priced parking, they are not going to come downtown. And that will be the end of the area’s renaissance.

Downtown employers need help if they are to be able to stay in business. If the cost of building additional parking facilities requires such hefty increases in fees at existing lots and buildings, then there needs to be some form of direct assistance from either the city, CCDC, or other agency that is committed to maintaining downtown as a viable economic entity.

Downtown San Diego is pretty much all we have left to accommodate the region’s anticipated growth in residences and businesses. North City and other suburban locations are becoming built out or the infrastructure serving those areas is at maximum capacity. What do you suppose the moves of several major downtown or La Jolla Village employers to the suburbs would do to the already congested freeways serving those locations?

With proper planning and committed implementation, downtown San Diego has the capacity to serve not only its present commercial and residential populations quite well, but also most of the growth of the region in the next two decades. We have too much at stake to risk our capacity to grow over allowing the city’s parking debacle to continue unresolved.