For the first time in 20 or 25 years, we have empty parking spaces on Main Street after Labor Day. It’s because we chased away those people who would come when it wasn’t summer or a nice weekend, who actually wanted to come here to support us by spending money on our Main Street, year-round.
When we had parklets, the people who came here just for free parking would fight off the people that actually wanted to come here and spend money shopping and dining, from being able to use the little bit of parking that was still left during the parklet debacle.
So what is the city’s plan now? Why of course, raise the cost of the beach lots when you don’t have meters on Main Street, and of course, that isn’t going to cause more avoidance of our beach lots and cause more people to take the parking on Main Street, right? Every empty parking spot represents a lost supporter of our town, and the revenue they would’ve brought to our city.
That loss of revenue is now put on the back of every resident and business in our city. We either have to pay more taxes and fees or cut services with everything from cleaning our streets and sidewalks, to the amount of police we have, which lack of, increases response times, which increases crime.
Let’s instead try to entice those people back to our city, rather than just put even more obstacles in their way.
Let’s put in meters, which not only creates revenue, but also saves the parking for people who want to spend money on our street.
Get rid of the two hour limit because people who really want to spend significant amounts of money can’t do it in two hours.
That doesn’t allow time for both shopping and dining. The idea of turnover might be good if you’re hoping to create enough revenue from people that may or may not just want to buy a cup of coffee.
A city cannot survive on that kind of revenue.
Does it not make more sense to allow those people that want to spend significant amounts of money by shopping and actually dining on our street to give them as much time as they want to spend money on our street?
Woody Woodruff
