Letters to the Editor

+ Parking meters a bad idea, getting worse

Dear Editor:

May we please stop the lunacy of killing our downtown shop owners and restaurants? There are many parking spaces now that match the cries for help by merchants trying to survive this economy and off-season.

Our new mayor (check the tapes of the City Commission public meetings on all) has stated that paid parking was inevitable. Oh, really — where?

Our city manager for months claimed that meters were not an economic move but one for vibrancy. This is a word that a paid consultant gave the previous commission to use after they determined that meters were needed. These people were meter experts — what did you expect?

Our city manager then said meters were an economic need — he must have (excuse me Roger Clemens) “misremembered” that he said the opposite, until that moment.

Ask any store owner today if they want meters. The City Commission keeps saying that there are plenty of free spaces in the new garage. This garage will start charging for parking in October.

The timing of this is also idiotic. You start this now, when the snowbirds are gone, and place the burden on the residents? The timing, even if it were a good move, is ridiculous.

The City Commission claims that the store owners and employees were the ones taking up the free parking spaces. Did these people ever own a retail business? Sounds like another catch phrase put into their heads by consultants.

The deficit from the previous system was the inability to collect fines from visitors. They should have fixed that problem and the $500,000 deficit rather than spending close to $600,000 on meters. Dumb and dumber.

The parking meters installed in major cities such as New York and Chicago were installed to keep cars out. They are there to promote the use of rapid transit, which we do not have. Even if this were a logical idea, many of these meters would never even pay for even their own cost, based on their illogical locations.

Lastly, those who do not live near downtown will no longer drive there to shop or eat. Gasoline, time and now … meters? No expendable income past food, rent, clothing, gas, unemployment at record numbers, and you want to tax our residents in these conditions?

Elliot Silverman
Sarasota