After discovering that the petition request had been rejected months ago, I realized that the Select Board has no intention to bring up this topic in their meetings. It would be pointless to do so, since the Select Board is known to rubber stamp the recommendations of the TRC.
This suggests that if anything is to be changed, then we have to come up with a working strategy based on what we now know about how the system works and who the decision makers are. So instead of presenting ideas to the Select Board that will be shot down by the TRC, it is necessary to work together with the TRC and come up with solutions that they will agree with and that will work for everyone. The major hurdle here is that the TRC may not have any interest in “working together” on anything. Even if there is a problem, and even if they are willing to solve it, there is no guarantee that they will work together with residents or solve the problem in a way that will benefit anyone but themselves. But, it’s all we have right now.
Identifying the problems
This one isn’t that difficult: we both have a problem that we want solved, and they are both related.
- We want to be able to park on the street overnight during the winter when the DPW isn’t doing snow prep or snow clearing.
- The DPW wants the roads to be cleared when they are conducting snow prep and snow clearing.
The TRC recommendations suggest that the DPW director is aware of issues with parked vehicles being in the way of snow plows, but it isn’t obvious if he is aware of how big the problem is. It may take more data gathering and more videos to really convince him of the extent of the problem.
Working Together to Solve the Issues
I sent the following email to the town engineer on August 20th. The idea was simple: given that ideas in the petition were band, I requested to work with him to come up with a plan that the TRC would tentatively accept. It sounds reasonable, but so far Matt has not responded. Below is the email:
Hi Matt,
After reviewing your recommendations for the Select Board regarding my petition, I understand that you do not recommend any of the options listed in the petition. As I mentioned at the Select Board meeting yesterday, there is obvious room for improvement, and I do think it is possible to come up with a plan that would be for everyone’s benefit.
The main goals:
- Increase the effectiveness of a parking ban during the times that the DPW is conducting preparations and clearing of ice and snow.
- Reduce the burden of residents who don’t have off street parking.
Requirements:
- A simple plan that is cost effective and requires minimal resources/admin
I am going to assume that the Select Board will not agree to any petitions that don’t meet the TRC’s approval, so I would like to ask if you would be willing to help me put together a proposal that would potentially be approved by the TRC.
Based on your recommendations, this is a proposal that I think could potentially work:
Proposal (a rough draft)
Allow residents to register their vehicles with the town if they know their vehicles will be parked overnight in the wintertime. This registration could come with a fee of around $50 per vehicle to persuade residents who have off-street parking to use it. (It will also offset revenue from parking tickets.) The registration form could (optionally) ask residents to confirm that they do not have an off-street parking option for the vehicle they are registering. This registration would be renewed on a yearly basis.
Info collected to include license plate number, address, and phone number. This information could be entered into a spreadsheet or database that would be accessible by any member of the PD.
These vehicles will be allowed to park on the street overnight as long as there is no DPW request to remove vehicles from the road for snow prep or snow clearing.
Optional: Supplying parking permits for overnight parking. This could make enforcement easier, but would slightly increase costs and admin.
Communication: whenever snow prep or clearing is likely, DPW will send out an SMS blast requesting the vehicles to be removed from the streets.
Enforcement: PD puts notes on cars during November reminding of winter ban and providing link to registering car for on-street parking. Enforcement of the overnight parking ban would begin in December as usual.
Any issuance of an overnight parking ticket during the winter months could include a note about registering vehicles for overnight parking. Note that we would want to encourage residents to register these vehicles because this would give the town up-to-date phone numbers for communicating with residents regarding snow and ice emergencies.
Note: the effectiveness of this plan will potentially involve stricter enforcement of the overnight parking ban on streets where multiple vehicles are typically found parked overnight.
Let me know what you think,
Thanks,
Jeremy
