Here's a way to pick up a few extra bucks. Start ticketing people who park straddling the yellow line between two spaces. Double parking used to be an ordinance. And its rampant in Ferndale. Nothing will throw you into a huff when you have an appointment looking for somewhere to park and some self-involved lazy slob has parked like he would track his muddy boots across your carpet and not even stop chewing his sandwich.

No one likes getting ticketed including me, but if Ferndale wrote parking tickets with the same tenacity as Royal Oak you could build a deck AND keep parking at .50 an hour. Get busy.

"After talking to business owners and residents I think we need to take a step back and re-evaluate the revenues, what we're going to use the revenues for, what does the community value and what we want to invest in," Ferndale Mayor Pro Tem Melanie Piana said during the meeting.

GOOD IDEA.
MAYBE YOU SHOULD HAVE TALKED TO BUSINESS OWNERS AND RESIDENTS BEFORE YOU DID ALL OF THIS.

Piana said the city would have specific goals in place to increase parking and would communicate the reason for any rate increase to residents and aim to "have better community buy-in for it."

"COMMUNITY BUY-IN"
GOTTA LOVE THE GOVERNMENT-SPEAK BABBLE. THESE PEOPLE EVEN SPEAK A DIFFERENT LANGUAGE THAN THE REST OF US. THEY ARE A WORLD UNTO THEMSELVES. CLUELESS, DISCONNECTED. GOVERNMENT IS A DETACHED BLOATED MONSTER THAT IS SUCKING THE LIFE OUT OF THIS COUNTRY.

These politicians are the same people who believed the DDA who were completely snowed over by the vendor for those machines. It's guaranteed that the data to support the plan for this fiasco was all provided by the vendor who is now rewarded by the purchase of a LOT more of their confusing product. Glaring ineptitude is rewarded instead of people being held accountable....lack of accountablility around here is becoming a norm....

"COMMUNITY BUY-IN" another phrase for "COMMUNITY INVESTMENT" which means COMMUNITY TAXES!

I think if Ferndale enforced the parking off the street in snow emergencies they would have a ton of money from tickets. I can't believe how many times I drive from work to home on back streets where I see bumps where the plows had to go around some car still on the street with tons of snow.

Can anyone remind me of what the major pro(s) is to having multi-space meters? I know there are a bunch of small benefits, but they they do not seem to outweigh the magnitude of the cons we are seeing here, including the huge cost to pay for them, since now we will need more than originally thought. The only time I had seen these type of meter systems before were in lots that did not see too much action most of the time, so it made sense not to have a a bunch of meters collecting dust, and each individual meter be checked when there was not much if anything in them. In that case there was only one multi-space meter for the whole lot. Conversely, you have these in lots that are full most of the time during heavy hours, with a high turnover rate throughout the day. Hopefully, the "cool factor", or some other less naive reason, was not a major factor when they were deciding to go with this system.

How long will it take to accumulate enough parking meter money to be able to pay for a parking structure? It seems like this plan was in place years before, and we are not anywhere near the goal. At the rate that we use the "parking fund" money for all of these side projects (e.g., these new meters) it will take a long time, if ever, to get there. There is a parking study, infamously (since its approaching four years old) from 2009, that said we needed a parking structure, and gave recommendations of where to put it. That's four years plus whatever many years it will take from now. At this rate, by the time we get a structure, who knows if we will even need one. Many things can happen in five to ten years from now: less cars, recession, a mass transit system. My point is: We needed a parking structure yesterday; Have a plan that gets you one today, not one you might get years from now. Otherwise, it may just not be feasible to build one.

This question and the one in my previous post is not meant to be sarcastic. If anyone has any answers, please comment. I would appreciate it. I have seen city officials comment here before, so I am sure they they are aware of this site, and probably use it to get a pulse of the community on certain issues.

Thank God somebody is listening...

Hey, G-Money who's we? You mean the club owners?

Alan:

What I meant by "we" is the city collectively: All of us, not just the government or the businesses, but the residents too. That use I proceeded to use was in the general vein of discussion of how it is presumed by our city government that "we" all "need" a parking structure, and in the 2009 parking study. Would I personally need to use a parking structure?: No. I live close to the downtown, and it would be less of a hassle to walk. Probably a lot of other residents would never need to park there either. Neither would people who bike here from other cities.

I do get your overall meaning however, when you mention club owners. I have stated in a previous post, that whoever needs the extra parking should be the ones to pay for it. That would be any business whose main crowds come in after normal business hours. That is when the parking deficits are.

To me its pandering to some business owners! If there is money to made then let private sector invest. I grow tired of our Governmental leaders invest or gamble with our money only for we Taxpayers to be left holding the bag when things go sour.