By Liz Sheehan
SEA BRIGHT – The Borough Council is considering timed metered parking in its municipal lots during the beach season.
Joseph Verruni, acting borough administrator, said that a Request for Proposals for a metering system in municipal parking lots was issued and he expects that the Borough Council would review the bids at the first workshop meeting in February.
Council members were approaching the question “with open minds,” he said. “No decision has been made,” Verruni said, nor has any rate been set for parking if meter systems are installed.
The borough will consider proposals from vendors that provide parking pay stations or Internet-based mobile applications pay systems for approximately 500 spaces in the municipal lot, Anchorage beach and borough hall.
The council gave no indication that there would be paid parking on Ocean Avenue in the business district, he said.
Councilman Charles Rooney III said he was in favor of the metered parking. He said that the hours probably would be from 9 a.m., to give people a chance to take a walk on the beach earlier, to 6 p.m.
Rooney said that in the summer the Anchorage lot is already full by 9 a.m. with cars from nearby residents and workers from businesses. The lot in the business district often has 60 to 70 cars by 10 a.m. on weekends, mostly cars from the employees or members of private beach clubs nearby, he said.
He estimated that 150 spaces are taken up by either employees or members of the private beach clubs on weekends, using spaces that are meant for badge-paying visitors to the beach.
The $1 per hour fee could provide revenue for the borough and free up spaces for beachgoers, he said.
Rooney estimated the borough could receive around $100,000 from the meters and “this town needs revenue more than ever.” He believes the town will make $30,000 in beach badge sales if parking is rededicated to beachgoers.
Before he heard about the possibility of metered parking, Megan Heath Gilhool, owner of the ArtSea Gallery on Ocean Avenue, was already concerned about this summer’s installation of back-in angled parking from just south of the Rumson-Sea Bright Bridge to Center Street.
“There is nothing good that can come from parking meters,” she said. The meters would “turn our police into meter maids.”
Flooding and the salt air could damage the pay stations. Mothers with children at the beach would find it a hardship to come to the parking lot to extend their parking time. And some patrons of the bars and restaurants in the town, who leave their cars overnight after drinking alcohol, might find it difficult to arrive back in the morning to retrieve their cars before the meters went into effect, she said.
Worse, if parking spaces on Ocean Avenue are full – as they often are – customers would have to “pay a dollar” at the meters to go to local stores and some might prefer to go to stores where there would be no cost to park, Gilhool said.
Councilman Jack Keeler said Monday that he was not in favor of the installation of paid parking, but wanted to look at the proposals.
“Conceptually. I’m leaning against it,” he said, saying he’d prefer a hike in beach fees. “Paid parking is a nuisance,” Keeler said, adding the borough should avoid it if it could.
He said there were some problems with the present system of providing free parking for beachgoers as “some people used it and didn’t go to the beach,” depriving the borough of revenue when prospective beach users could not find parking spaces.
“It’s a legitimate concern” to try and stop that practice, Keeler said.
He said he was opposed to the back-in angled parking that would be put into place and thinks it would cause traffic problems on the heavily travelled roadway.
