And Parking Passes

Well, the City Council adopted a fee structure for paid parking in downtown Newburyport. Don't ask me to rely who voted how because frankly I'm still a bit confused by the series of votes. And I clearly wasn't alone.

So rather than put out some crap information I'll just hold back until I can get this all sorted out.

(Add: Councilor/Blogger Ari Herzog does a nice job of recapping the night here.)

It's safe to say that I would have lost my initial bets, but that performance is entirely consistent with my blackjack career. I like to play but I lose - a lot.

Here are the facts:

* Resident Parking Fees were dropped from $50 to $5. Mayor Holaday attended the meeting and suggested she could work with $10 for residents and $5 for seniors.

The council instead went with $5 for residents and $0 for any resident over 65. No problem on this end, except that City Clerk Richard Clerk estimated the built in administrative cost of issuing each permit would be roughly $10 (overall costs of running the clerk's office is $40 and hour, processing a permit will take about 15 minutes). But no one pushed hard on this point so I'm willing to wait and see what the impact is.

* The council discussed a prorated permit for seasonal employees but ultimately left the decision in the hands of City Clerk Richard Jones whose office manages parking enforcement.

* The council created a revolving "Downtown Paid Parking Account" where the revenue from the parking program will be stored. The revenue will go toward maintaining the program, paying shares to the NRA and Waterfront Trust, and not less than $50,000 per year toward the "general stewardship, care, maintenance, and improvement of downtown's public infrastructure and other capital projects.

The council needs to consider the program again at its next meeting to make it official. The second readings typically are formalities, but we'll see what happens. The next meeting is Feb. 7.