(74th in a series of posts on parking)
New year. Girding my loins, as they used to say in the old days, for the first meeting of the Bethlehem Parking Authority.
Look at the number here. Gadfly devoted 73 posts in the old year to the BPA.
And didn’t come away unscathed. He was gruffly told he couldn’t question the Board at one meeting. And after another meeting the ticket machine in the parking garage ate his credit card.
Don’t mess with these guys.
They have powers.
I missed the December meeting. They changed the time twice, and I couldn’t make the 3rd time.
So I’m not up to speed on the latest developments.
But here’s what’s on my list:
- It looks like the parking meter rates did go from $1.00/hr to $1.50/hr on January 1. I don’t remember seeing any fanfare. Did anybody? Did I miss? For I understood there was to be a publicity roll-out, including keeping the old rate till June 1 if you used an app. Is anybody griping about the 50% increase? Did it go down smoothly?
- The Mayor promised that the Redevelopment Authority would provide Council with a timeline of their involvement in the Polk Garage saga. I wonder if that happened.
- The BPA is to meet with Council about funding options for Polk in the first quarter of this year (January-March). So we’ll be looking for that to happen.
- Decisions about the fines are to happen at the time of the funding meeting as well.
- The mayor included several things, like investigating variable rate parking, when he approved the meter rate proposal. So we’ll be looking for the status of those things. See the mayor’s letter to BPA: Mayor Parking Meter Rate Increase.
- Gadfly was to investigate when and why the strange system that splits responsibility between rates and fines between the mayor and Council started. Gadfly does have info on that which will be coming soon (shameless tease).
Have I forgotten anything?
Anybody have concerns?