By Liz Sheehan
SEA BRIGHT – It looks like beachgoers coming to the borough will find a big change this summer, as the borough moved ahead in its plan to install a paid parking meter system in what had previously been free parking lots.
By one vote, the Borough Council at its April 19 meeting approved a resolution to acquire and install a parking meter system in the beachfront parking lot, the Anchorage beach lot and the Borough Hall lot.
Borough Administrator Joseph Verruni said Wednesday that there were some adjustments that needed to be made to the plan that was discussed at the meeting but the system would be in place this summer. Asked how the proposed six meters could service more than 600 parking spaces in the lots, he said customers could use their cellphones to pay the meters, as well as cash or credit cards. He also said that some free one-hour parking spaces were being considered.
Verruni said the final plan for the parking system needs to come back to the council for its approval.
At the meeting Councilman Brian Kelly outlined the proposed plan for the new system.
He said that the parking would be metered from the Friday of Memorial Day weekend to the end of the Labor Day weekend, and would be in use from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. There would be no meters on Ocean Avenue, he said. Kelly said the first row of the lot on the beachfront would be reserved for 30-minute free parking and for free parking for residents who live on Ocean Avenue in the town center.
The fee for parking would be $1 an hour, he said. There would be six paying stations at the parking areas, Kelly said.
Depending on the number of vehicles using the parking, Kelly said revenues would range from $95,000 to $133,000.
Before the council vote, in which council members Jack Keeler and John Lamia Jr. voted against the ordinance and Peggy Bills abstained from the vote, while Kelly, Charles Rooney III and Marc A. Leckstein voted for it, several members of the public commented on the meter plan.
Borough resident Al PraSisto said he supported paid parking which was “an untapped financial resource,” for the town which needed revenue. He said that the plan must have specific parking for businesses.
Brian George, of Northshore, a clothing store in the town, said a customer had joked with him about the meters, saying “why don’t you just put a toll booth on the bridge?”
“I think there has to be a happy medium here,” he said.
On Wednesday, George said he believed the town was trying to keep the needs of the businesses in mind in the plan.
But others said that businesses could suffer and asked the council to put off any action on the plan until it was further studied.
Marianne McKenzie said that instead of charging for parking the town should increase the beach fee from $8 to $10. She said the fee had not been raised in around 15 years.
She said the council should not act so quickly on the parking plan, but “take your time and do it right.” McKenzie said she was concerned for those who had bought season passes for the beach without knowing that they would now have to pay $1 for each hour they park to go to the beach.
After the meeting, Keeler said he had voted against the ordinance because he believed the town should take more time to look into it before acting, but he supported the meter system.
Bills said she “was not prepared to say yes or no,” on the vote to move ahead with the meter plan.
At the meeting, Lamia said, “I think we are premature” in putting the system in place. “It is late in the day.”
He also questioned the revenue projections for the meters, which he said was “hoping the weather was good,” to attract beachgoers.
“I personally don’t like it,” Mayor Dina Long said after the council meeting, speaking of metered parking. She said she doesn’t go to the towns that have metered parking unless she has to.
She is against it in Sea Bright because it is against the openness of the town and affects access to the beach.
But Long said the residents were under a heavy tax burden because of having to pay for the restoration of the buildings it lost in Super Storm Sandy and the revenue for the parking meters would help ease that burden.
