ATHOL – The Select Board voted to continue free downtown parking during the holiday season, after the Parking Benefits District Oversight Committee recommended it be suspended.
Committee Chair Gary Deyo went before the board at its Nov. 10 meeting to explain the reasons behind the proposal.
At first reading from a prepared statement, Deyo explained that members of the committee “would like to recommend that the Select Board and town manager to discontinue…free parking from Thanksgiving until New Year’s Day. The reason for this is that the residents are abusing the free parking by parking there all day and night.”
This, he said, is a disservice to visitors to downtown and was an issue last year. In addition to doing away with the free parking, he added, the committee asked that the parking ambassador be allowed to continue enforcing the two-hour parking limit from Thanksgiving to New Year’s.
“We have two people on the committee who are merchants, so they’re aware of what’s happening downtown,” Deyo added.
Those merchants, he said, claim the parking ambassador is not enforcing the two-hour limit.
“The argument of the committee is that if you give them free parking, some residents will park there 24 hours a day and disregard the two-hour limit,” said Deyo
Mary Holtorf, a member of both the parking committee and the Downtown Vitality Committee, told the board, “The purpose of using meters and having enforcement is management of the parking….and to have people move their vehicles after two hours to have turnover. If it works properly, there’s always going to be a few spaces open so the next person can come in. Enforcing the meters is only part of it, but people should move after two hours. If people are going to spend more than two hours, they should be parking off-street.”
Holtorf said an informal survey conducted before the parking committee took its vote to suspend free holiday parking indicated that merchants and their customers wanted the convenience of being able to find a parking space on Main Street.
“If we take a pass on enforcing the meter feeding (this year), the two-hour limit needs to be enforced,” she said.
Board member Russell Raymond asked how the two-hour limit can be enforced if the parking ambassador is only working 10 hours a week or two hours a day.
“Random enforcement does work,” Holtorf replied. “People, if they get a ticket because they’ve been there more than two hours, then they get another ticket, they’re going to start to catch on.”
“So, it doesn’t sound like it makes a difference whether we do or whether we don’t have the moratorium on the meters (free parking), as long as we do our best to enforce the two-hour limit,” said board Chair Mill Chiasson.
Board member Mitch Grosky made a motion to enact a parking meter fee moratorium from Thanksgiving until New Year’s Day, during which time the two-hour limit would be enforced. The board voted unanimously to approve the motion.
“We have a parking ambassador,” Chiasson said. “Perhaps that parking ambassador, during normal business hours, could be chalking tires and moving people out, or writing tickets.”