How To Improperly Operate A Small City (aka, The Parking Meter Update)

Here is a quick look at what has been going on in 2 of the city's municipal parking lots for at least the past 3 weeks (and possibly a lot longer).

The Union Street lot has 29 parking meters.  2 of them have been blacked out and inoperable since at least a year ago -- it's like the city has given up on replacing them or cleaning them up.  Additionally, there are 8 meters which are blank -- no numbers at all are displayed inside the meter.  A blank meter will accept a quarter, but no time will appear on the digital screen.  The coin slots for two of those 8 blank meters are covered in blue tape.  That's 10 out of service meters, or more than 30% of the total number of meters. 

Blank & Blue

If a meter is out of service, the HPD Parking Enforcers cannot issue a meter violation ticket to a car parked in that space.  It's a fact:  no operating meter, no $10 ticket, no quarters. 

Among the 100 meters in the City Hall lot, there is a section of 9 meters along the alley.  Just 2 of those 9 meters are operating properly.  3 pairs of meters (on the same pole) are blank, as is one of the remaining 3 meters.  I know it's a small sample size, but 77% of those 9 meters have been out of service for weeks, providing free parking with no risk to drivers of being ticketed.

Can't complain about the weeds 
if the parking is free!

DPW has failed to remove the overgrown weeds along those out of service meters during their past two maintenance visits to the lot.

Quite a show, ain't it?

The issue of recent low parking ticket revenue that was brought up in last week's council meeting won't be solved by raising the enforcers' wages by $5, will it?  If so many meters are out of service, we don't need to hire more enforcers to issue tickets that can't be issued.