Dear Editor,

As noted recently in The Mountain-Ear, the Town is abruptly embarking on an experiment in paid parking (PP). Critically important details have been lacking, including: the PP implementation zones; contract terms with the (ruthless) management company; the company’s income percentages versus what Town reaps; penalties Town may incur for backing out of the deal; new Town infrastructure requirements and impacts; maintenance impacts and costs; criteria for who is a “Town resident”; methodology for Town residents to indicate exempt vehicles (everybody in Town has to get digital vehicle registrations? Or register for (God help us) window stickers? Or what?).

Those are the minor issues. Here are two big ones. First, the point of PP is not normally to raise cash for a municipality. The point is to force more rapid turnover in areas where people are otherwise leaving their vehicles all day. We’ve seen no evidence that there is a turnover problem with parking in Nederland. If the Town thinks this is a problem, concrete evidence needs to be presented for that. Second, PP automatically pushes vehicles outward from the pay zones to public, and even non-public, areas that are non-pay.

So, if Main Street and the parking lot across from the Visitor Center were to become PP (we’ll suppose), then parkers will automatically put their vehicles into B&F spaces, Lakeview spaces, Feed Store and Kathmandu spaces, Ubon spaces, and adjacent residential streets. This in turn creates financial hardship, headaches and enforcement issues for people responsible for those adjacent parking areas—problems they never signed up for, never agreed to, and don’t deserve.

If the Town wants to approach PP responsibly and professionally, first do the requisite homework to demonstrate that there is a need. If there is, work out how to implement a scheme that doesn’t hurt innocents.

Frank Sanders

Tungsten Valley