Written by Mary C. Marvin

Oct. 1, 2014: Due to the long-awaited start of the Kensington Road project and the receipt of a federal grant to renovate the Garden Avenue lot, parking has taken center stage at village hall. 

To recap, the village displaced merchants, commuting residents, and residents needing 24-hour parking from the Kensington lot. This was a difficult task. 

The most complicated step was relocating our 24-hour resident parkers. Local municipalities do not have authority to grant permitted street parking. To allow designated parkers to park 24/7 on village streets required passage of a bill in both the Senate and Assembly in Albany. Once both legislatures approved the bill, the governor had to sign it in order for it to be enacted. Specific zones have been created for permitted resident parkers on Sagamore Road near the playground and north of Avon Road, on Paxton Avenue, and on a stretch of Valley and Kensington Roads. 

In response to resident concerns at our forum this summer, Sagamore Road from Kensington Road to the playground has been left available for public parking so that all residents, not just the "LK" permit holders, may come and go with groceries or accommodate babysitters and guests.  

Our displaced commuters were reassigned to spaces in the Kraft Avenue lot and our merchants were given additional spots in the Garden lot. Prior to redesignating these spaces, the village did a lot usage study and reassigned only underutilized spaces so as to minimize the effect on village shoppers, doctors' patients, etc. 

Parking enforcement begins at 8:00 am and ends at 6:00 pm. Anyone may park in any space in the Kraft and Garden lots after 3:00 pm daily, but please remember to feed the meter until 6:00 pm. 

We also made a decision to disrupt our constituents only once and combined two summers' worth of projects in the Garden lot to this August and September. The work is nearing completion. We are waiting for a delayed sign order to complete the work.  

All of this change required a sustained notification process that included placing flyers on cars, letters inserted with permit renewal notices, information announced at our village board meetings, and notification on the village and chamber of commerce websites. Our staff even went so far as to make personal calls to parkers who have had trouble in the past. 

These changes necessitated meter reprogramming in many areas. The village maintains our meter inventory on a regular basis and attends to meter complaints promptly.  

Parking enforcement officers have regular routes to follow. The village is divided into three zones, and our officers are instructed to work their routes to ensure even enforcement. If it happens that an officer passes your car as the meter time expires, he may issue a ticket, but the officer cannot go backward on the route. Another parker may benefit from additional parking time until the officer makes his round again. 

To encourage needed new businesses, some residents have suggested that the village offer free parking. Unfortunately, this has the opposite effect. Stores prosper if they have a constant turnover of customers. Having cars parked all day in front of stores as the owners commute to Manhattan or work in the various schools and businesses throughout the village would be a great deterrent to the needed flow of customers.  

Parking enforcement--including ticket issuance--is an integral part of our parking management program. However, if you believe at any time that a ticket you received was issued in error, bring it to the attention of our judges and court. Our judges, two seasoned veterans and longtime residents of our village, are well versed in village parking matters: the notification process, designated areas, and signage. They are eminently fair, knowing that mistakes will be made. 

The village is exploring alternative methods of parking payments as a convenience to our parkers. We have met with multi-space meter vendors and with pay-by-phone companies. Adding either or both of these payment methods will provide an alternative to our current coin-only meters. 

We know that these unprecedented upheavals have caused understandable frustration and we are grateful for your patience. Please avail yourself of all of our communication outlets, including a call to village hall, if anything seems unclear. We are open to your suggestions to help us improve the safety and efficiency of our parking system. As an example, thanks to comments from daily parkers, we have ordered additional signage to clarify the new designated permit areas.  

We encourage your feedback.