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BY EMILY BATTLE
The two weeks that City Council members gave themselves to mull over spending $100,000 on high-tech parking enforcement equipment are almost up.
In that time, the equipment has gained some nicknames--"Star Wars" and "the robot" among them.
It has been studied by council members, some of whom will see it demonstrated on Tuesday.
And it has prompted varying reactions from people who spend their time and make their living downtown.
The system Fredericksburg is considering buying--called AutoChalk--is meant to improve the two part-time parking officers' efficiency at writing tickets.
Paired with stiffer fines for repeat offenders, this would in theory deter people from hogging downtown's two-hour parking spots.
But with a brand-new parking garage sitting largely empty much of the time, some merchants wonder what all the fuss is about.
"I grew up in Washington, D.C., and I've never even thought for a second that parking was a problem in downtown Fredericksburg," said Paul Cymrot, owner of Riverby Books on Caroline Street.
"You walk farther when you go to Wal-Mart."
To Cymrot, and to many others downtown, the idea of replacing parking officers on foot with a police SUV loaded with cameras and a computer doesn't jibe with the city's historic nature.
City Councilman Marvin Dixon said the attitude he has heard from others downtown is, "It's too much technology for too small a town."
Former City Councilman Joe Wilson, who is constructing a building on Caroline Street, said he doesn't think the device is "tourist-friendly," and if the city is going to look at surveillance technology to solve any one problem, it should invest in red-light cameras.
Even the Downtown Retail Marketing Inc. merchants group--which has asked the city repeatedly to beef up its parking enforcement capabilities--has come out against AutoChalk.
Amid all the fear of a robot replacing human beings on the street, City Manager Phillip Rodenberg said there's no element of the AutoChalk system that isn't already used by government to solve other problems.
The system consists of a car equipped with a laptop, digital cameras and GPS technology--all things that are often celebrated as innovations when introduced to an old government task.
Council members have gotten several e-mails from downtown business owner Kyle Snyder.
Snyder called the manufacturer of a company that is providing a different parking technology to Harrisonburg--handheld devices that can read license plates--and passed an estimate to council members.
Snyder suggests the handhelds would be a fraction of the price of AutoChalk.
But that view doesn't take into consideration the main benefit of AutoChalk, said Vice Mayor Kerry Devine. That is, that it would move the parking officers around the downtown streets faster, freeing up time for them to make rounds in other areas of the city where parking is a problem, without requiring more city employees.
City officials wrote up a memo this week to address concerns about the system.
One new point they make is that AutoChalk would allow for parking enforcement to happen when it's raining outside, a time when it's hard for officers to get out and mark tires.
Devine, Mayor Tom Tomzak and Councilmen Matt Kelly and George Solley all voted for the AutoChalk purchase a few weeks ago, on the first of two required votes for the expense.
Council members Debby Girvan and Hashmel Turner voted against it, expressing concern about whether such new technology would be reliable, and whether it fits Fredericksburg's character.
Dixon wasn't at the meeting for that first vote, and he's the one who asked for extra time to study it.
One of Dixon's concerns is that if the city adopts AutoChalk, motorists won't find out that they've been ticketed until notice gets mailed to their homes.
He thinks that could frustrate tourists who come to the city from elsewhere.
"I suspect that [getting a ticket mailed home] would fade the bright spot I had in my heart from my visit to Fredericksburg," he said.
City officials have said the first violation would get a warning, which would come with a seven-day "grace period" during which a car couldn't get new tickets.
The point, they say, is to give motorists information that will encourage them to use the parking garage if they're parking for more than two hours.
Solley, who at first voted for the proposal, said he has been looking for more information over the past two weeks, and that the council may need even more time to weigh the pros and cons of the new technology.
"I just want to have the fullest information possible," he said.
Emily Battle: 540/374-5413|
Here are city responses to some of the questions raised about AutoChalk.
WILL PEOPLE WITH HANDICAPPED PLACARDS BE TICKETED?
AutoChalk can't see these tags, but city officials have proposed having people register their tags with the police department so that information can be loaded into the AutoChalk database. That would alert a parking officer not to ticket these cars.
WILL WE HAVE ANY TIME TO GET USED TO THIS? Yes. City officials have proposed a three-week "start period," during which only warnings will be mailed to violators. WILL PARKING Officials say AutoChalk would make the parking officers more efficient, freeing up time for them |
