By SUSAN JAY

Gary Miller had never thought about moving out of the family's 43-year-old automotive shop - until Rogue Community College moved in.

He wants the college in town. He just doesn't want it across the street from his business, Miller Motor Service, on South Bartlett.

"I am for the college. I think it's a great thing," said Miller, a Medford native. "But I really wanted it built somewhere else."

Like many downtown merchants, Miller supports the community college coming to Jackson County, but he and others say the move has only worsened an already ugly parking problem downtown.

Merchants say they like the boost they're seeing in pedestrian traffic on downtown streets.

Some businesses such as the Yellow Submarine and the Boulangerie have started to see more business from students buying sandwiches and coffee.

But many merchants say they don't like the parking headaches the RCC move has caused, particularly for customers and employees. And some aren't convinced the new parking garage, slated to open this summer at Sixth and Riverside, will solve the problem.

The biggest complaint seems to be the lack of customer parking.

Arnie Klott, owner of Pronto Print at the corner of Ninth and Central, was able to get a loading zone in front of his shop for his patrons. But he and other merchants such as Oak Furniture Outlet owner Terry Rombach and Valley Pawn and Trading owner Dennis

Toney say they are constantly asking students not to park in their lots.

Miller said he has lost customers who told him they don't come to his shop anymore because they spend too much time looking for a parking spot.

RCC students complain, too. Eighteen-year-old Trevor Cox says parking up to five blocks away is too inconvenient because he has to go back and forth to his car for books and other supplies.

When he has a 90-minute class and he's parked in a one-hour parking zone, he says, "I just hope I don't get a ticket."

He's gotten five so far.

Other students say they love the fact that RCC is in Medford, but parking is a hassle. Some say they don't mind walking and parking further away from the RCC center, but they don't have enough time between back-to-back classes to move their cars.

Mike Webber, parking manager with Medford's Urban Renewal Agency, said there are 130 parking spaces around RCC, most having one- to two-hour limits.

Some students and faculty use the public parking lot across Bear Creek next to the Enid Rankin Senior Center. The 134 spaces on that side of the creek, including downtown business employee parking in Hawthorne Park, are all-day parking spaces.

RCC officials say they understand the problem and want to work with merchants and the city.

But they say their first goal is to use precious college resources to provide students affordable classes - not pay for parking.

"I don't think that the parking situation is something to look away from, and I'm not asking for people to say it's all right," says Harvey Bennett, RCC president.

"But I hope that folks would look at the energies and efforts to bring services as equally or greater compared to the parking situation, and how well that's been done without the luxury of funding to support physical facilities, equipment or anything else."

Bennett said RCC's challenge in finding a location in Medford was balancing the need for buildings and parking with the costs of providing such facilities with a limited budget.

He said RCC could consider leasing more parking spaces, but the cost would have to be passed on to the students.

Keeping costs down is critical in making classes affordable for students, Bennett said.

"It's a question of service," he said. "We're trying to keep costs down and make services available with the trade-off being some discomfort."

The college did not have the money to build new buildings, he said. The college's leases cost an estimated $420,000 a year for the four downtown buildings, including the parking lots next to two of the buildings.

When RCC officials looked at other sites, they had higher price tags as well as parking and traffic problems.

"I think there are several things that will be happening in the near future and slightly beyond that will help parking in the overall downtown," Bennett said.

Don Burt, director of the Medford Urban Renewal Agency, said a number of steps are in place or in the works to make the downtown parking problem tolerable by fall and beyond.

"When we went into building the parking structure, we had a real good handle on the parking situation, but it didn't take into consideration U.S. Cellular and RCC," he said. "Both came down all at the same time."

Also, he said, "it took us by surprise that (RCC remodeled) as quickly as they did."

Burt said the new parking garage is expected to open this summer with 388 parking spaces. "That's got to have some benefit," he said.

About two-thirds of those spaces are already leased to downtown business employees, including U.S. Cellular, and the first floor will be for public parking, with time limits.

The agency has also accelerated its plans to buy property for the future realignment of Front and Central between Ninth and 10th in hopes of easing the parking crunch. The purchase should add spaces for about 70 cars this fall.

For the future, Burt said the agency plans to start designing the second, multistory, downtown parking garage at Eighth and Central this year, with completion projected in 2000.

"Parking is very expensive," Burt said. "We have limited resources and we're going as fast as we can, and at the same time we don't want downtown to look like a strip mall."

Burt said the agency will begin meeting soon with RCC officials to work on a master plan for the college downtown. The long-range planning process is meant to help the college form a downtown identity.

The meetings will include downtown merchants, so everyone is aware of the college's plans for future growth.