Our councillors are worried about the image that might be conveyed to the people bidding on supplying services and installing of the proposed electronic parking meters. I think it's time they started worrying more about what the voters think and a little less about what the Vancouver business community thinks.
Another thing that has caught my attention was the mention of these meters having license plate recognition devises. Didn't we get rid of photo radar, a tool that helped catch potential killers on the highway and now they are talking about parking monitors that have imaging devises in them? Could these devises also be used to track citizen's movements, while downtown? Do meter maids collect the violation information directly from the meters or is it transmitted to city hall in a similar manner as a Hydro Smart Meters and could we be bombarded with hundreds of these transmissions while shopping downtown?
It is hard enough to encourage people to shop downtown at smaller, local stores where their money will stay in the community instead of going south. Communities like Quesnel advertise free parking to draw in more people. Do you think they might know something our astute city fathers don't?
We have a new city manager we are paying $200,000 a year plus to manage our city. Couldn't she, with all her qualifications, do some managing and figure out a way to collect outstanding tickets? Will we not still have the problem of unpaid parking tickets even with the new meter? Does the city not have a means to force these people, who disregard these laws or bylaws to pay their debts?
I still think there has to be a better way of managing the downtown parking, other than driving their customers out to the shopping malls and big box stores and driving up our taxes. Are not parking meters just another form of taxation? I fail to see where throwing good money after bad will solve the problem when it could possibly be solved with some good business management.
Mel McConaghy
Prince George
