As I recall, it was last February or March during a Parking Study Committee meeting that parking guru master and parking studier extraordinaire, Jen Belton, announced that the 16 parking kiosks had arrived to the DPW garage on Dock Street on February 4th. Let's call it a year ago, shall we?
Yesterday afternoon while on my stroll down the south side of Warren Street, I thought it would be a good idea to see how the city's new parking revenue machines were faring in the cold. To get things rolling, I pushed a few buttons on the kiosk in front of the parking lot nearest 3rd street. Moments later the screen asked me for my license plate number. Then, suddenly, it didn't want my plate number at all. Instead, the screen informed me that it was experiencing a "Pay Station Printer Error" and, further on, "this Pay Station cannot be used at this time. Please use another Pay Station nearby."
Sure, whatever you say, Mr. Parking Machine, I'll move on. It took me at least 4 minutes to walk south to the other Warren parking lot where the closest kiosk was surrounded by lots of bright orange tape and laminated plastic signs. Too much visual pollution and clutter, if you ask me (I wonder who the slob/slobs at HPD is/are). Concentrating on the kiosk, I performed the same task that I had on its out-of-service brother up the street. And wouldn't you know it, I got the exact same results from the second machine! "Printer Error.... cannot be used at this time.... Please use another..."
Hooray for us! Nothing fucking works properly or at all!
During his parking "breakdown" to the SAFETY Committee last Monday night, parking aficionado, kiosk safety master and Police Captain, David Miller, assured the public, the four committee members and Council Prez Margaret Morris that parking revenue was looking just fine and that the new paid parking system rollout was "going great." Miller, however, failed to mention anything about expenses related to HPD's new ambitious and transformational paid parking system, such as the vehicle now used by parking enforcers to get around town, the newly hired Parking Supervisor, all the signs going up and being broken and replaced, the hardware for the signs, warranties and service fees on the kiosks and, last but not least, printer paper for the Pay Station kiosks, an item and expense the erstwhile parking meters never required. Let's face it, if you are only going to include revenue while ignoring expenses in the assessment of an ongoing project, whatever conclusions you come to are going to be complete hogwash. What you think is a "great" project is probably not great at all. It could very well be awful, and you very well could be losing tax revenue, not gaining parking revenue.
It's worth repeating here on HUDseen: On his way out the door a few years ago, former Chief Ed Moore offered a few warnings, concerns and suggestions to City Hall and the public, something he chose to do. One of his offerings was about parking. Ed basically said, KEEP PARKING OUT OF HPD'S HANDS AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE AND LET THEM CONCENTRATE ON LAW ENFORCEMENT.
Mishanda Franklin's predecessor said this out loud to everyone during his farewell to the city at his final council meeting. Franklin, who, as I recall, was not present in the room, apparently never got the memo. Nor did she bother to listen to or follow the advice Ed Moore so graciously offered the city. Because if she had, HPD would not have taken over parking and created such a boondoggle mess for us all. In my opinion, they never should have been allowed to. This was all a huge mistake from the start, well before the $140,000-plus in kiosks arrived one year ago, ten of which are still in storage on Dock Street.
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