Norwalk parking authority agrees to reduce parking rates
Posted: Friday, February 20, 2009
By Frank MacEachern, Staff Writer The Advocate
NORWALK -- Rates at some city-owned parking facilities will be rolled back, possibly as early as March 1, after Mayor Richard Moccia urged the parking authority to make the changes in a special meeting Thursday.
"I don't know what it's going to take us (to make the cuts), but we're here to help," John Federici, acting
chairman of the Norwalk Parking Åuthority, which operates the city's parking system, told the mayor. Federici estimated the authority will have to come up with almost $100,000 in cuts to its recently approved $5.1 million operating budget to meet the
mayor's request.
Rate hikes went into effect Feb. 1, including increases of about $1 per hour at many of the cityowned parking facilities.
At the Webster Street lot in South Norwalk, motorists parking all day now pay $10.
Moccia said the rate hikes make it more difficult to attract people to go out and spend money in the city's bars and restaurants in the middle of a recession.
He said he received complaints that the hikes were a burden on business people and residents. Many business owners have been reducing prices "to get people back in through the door, and I think we have to do the same," Moccia said.
After the meeting, Federici said the parking authority will look at the revamped budget numbers at its meeting next Wednesday.
"Right now, I'm 98 percent sure we will be able to find that money, but it's not going to be an easy job for the staff since we already had cut the budget to the bone," he said. He said the authority may be able to roll back rates
by March 1.
Moccia said the city might be able to come up with some money for the authority through money it has set aside from its fees in lieu of parking policy. In that case, a business owner agrees to pay the city a fee if there isn't enough parking spaces for the
business as required by the city, Moccia said. That money is set aside and can be used to add parking spaces elsewhere in the city, he said.
One of the parking authority's board members who had originally questioned the rate hikes in December agreed the hikes came at the wrong time. "It is very obvious this is not the right time to raise fees," Burt Shatz said Thursday.
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