Princeton Parking Ticket Revenue Back Up Almost 2 Years After `Metergate’
The revenue the town of Princeton receives from issuing parking tickets is the highest it has been in 18 months, Princeton Chief Financial Officer Sandy Webb reported to the Princeton Council this week.
In September of 2013, Planet Princeton published stories about the employees of numerous town businesses being allowed to park at meters all day or park on streets with two-hour parking limits all day in exchange for food or other perks.
One parking meter attendant was fired after the town investigated the matter, and the other one was moved to the sewer operating authority. It took the town months to come up with new policies and procedures for parking meter attendants. Eventually the town filled both positions again (one was full time, one was half time).
Webb told the Princeton Council the parking ticket revenue has been back up since the positions were filled.
“We’re glad it’s coming back around,” she said. “In June it was the highest it has been in 10 months.”
Krystal Knapp is the founding editor of Planet Princeton. Follow her on Twitter @krystalknapp. She can be reached via email at editor AT planetprinceton.com. Send all letters to the editor and press releases to that email address.
It is unseemly for a municipal employee to being crowing about issuing citations to visitors and residents. I’d be impressed if she was reporting that compliance, and therefore parking revenue, had increased, but obviously that isn’t her focus. Maybe we ought to look at who we’re employing more carefully.
I thought the point of parking meters was to encourage turnover and provide downtown retailers with space for a steady stream of customers to park, not to make the town money.
You would think our property taxes are high enough that we could afford to slip a dollar bill under the wiper of people shopping, just to say “thank you for supporting our local merchants.”