Hi all, Brandon Smith here, local board member but not speaking for the board or town government.

I just wanted to recap something that went down at last night’s meeting. We heard a proposal for re-working the ordinance regarding parking and other traffic enforcement in town, which hadn’t been updated since the ’90s. Makes sense that we’d revisit it on the eve of the downtown parking meters, coming this summer.

Again, I’m not the biggest fan of parking meters, but they were funded by a federal grant, and I understand they were implemented to try to ensure spaces aren’t taken over for weeks at a time—which limits spots for customers of businesses. Once the new “Junction House” block takes shape in the area of the Coolidge Hotel, I imagine we’ll have more traffic and *might* start to appreciate the meters.

At any rate, Tuesday night the board heard proposed changes to the parking ordinance. One of those was the fee for a parking violation. Police Chief Connie Kelley said the fee hasn’t been changed from $7 since 1990. I think that’s great. I’m also not opposed to a *slight* bump. $15 was the proposed fee, in line with Hanover’s fee. Elsewhere in the presentation, it was expressed that it could be useful to stay in alignment with Hanover’s practices re: parking. But I say that, when it comes to the fee, we could stand to be lower. Mainly because our median income is lower. I proposed a fee of $11 rather than $15. The board, smaller than usual that night, tabled the discussion and the full board will vote on this proposal at a later meeting. Others proposed free parking on Saturdays—Sundays were always going to be free—and on public holidays. These will also be voted on.

I think $11 is far more appropriate than $15 because, for someone with plenty of cash to spare, the difference between these two numbers doesn’t really matter. But for someone living paycheck to paycheck, as I’ve done most of my life, it really does matter. The clear majority of Americans (60%) don’t make enough money to afford basic costs of living, according to a new study by the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity. I’ll paste the URL for an article on it here:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cost-of-living-income-quality-of-life/

The cost of the employee to write tickets was raised at the meeting. If the annual cost of a person to write tickets (all the costs associated with that employee) is $115,000, then five minutes of their time to write a ticket costs about $4.60. Sure, more than half their time won’t be writing tickets. But at $11 per ticket, it should still fund this work.

The board will vote later for a fee structure for the actual parking. I imagine it will be similar to Hanover’s: 25 cents for 15 minutes in the busy zone. (Though again, I will advocate for it to be a smidge lower than Hanover’s.) Their whole fee structure can be found here:

https://www.hanovernh.org/DocumentCenter/View/7042/Proposed-2025-2026-Rates-and-Fees-Schedule?bidId=

I hope you all will support the $11 fee, not $15. And that you’ll support the proposals for free parking on weekends and holidays. As always, we don’t know unless you tell us. Just email selectboard@hartford-vt.org

All my best,

Brandon