On Parking Ticket Fines And A Town Impound Lot

To the editor: As I read the story about the parking ticket fee increasing I was actually impressed. It is about time that the Select Board took action to help alleviate the parking situation downtown - since they appear to have decided that there is no need to initiate paid parking as many communities have done and the different versions of the Select Board have beaten that idea to death over the years with no movement forward. Hit the parking scofflaws in the wallet.

I have a suggestion and it would really help to alleviate downtown parking issues - and it would cost the town nothing. It is time to institute a system of towing and impounding any and all vehicles that get two tickets in the same space during the time when the Community Service Officers or Police Officers are issuing tickets. We have a perfect space for an impound lot, located behind the Public Safety Facility on Fairgrounds Road in the space where the proposed storage building was to be built. Vehicles that are impounded are to be towed to that lot and can be picked up during normal Police Department office hours. Owners would be required to pay the ticket fees, the towing fees, and a reasonable daily storage fee to get their vehicle back. The inconvenience of having their vehicle towed and having to pay extra for towing and storage, along with having to go and retrieve their vehicle during normal work hours, should help deter those who park without caring. The money from the storage could be specified to be used for parking education, or invested in a future paid parking program. The other option, outside of towing, would be to put the clamshell on the windshield of every vehicle that gets two tickets in one day - but that is much more labor-intensive and doesn't free up those parking spaces.

Many communities, especially tourist-based economies, have instituted these types of systems. They work really well, especially in communities that have failed to bring forth other parking control options. Since every Select Board has failed to put forth a viable paid parking plan this should be the next step. This proposal should not be used to eliminate the need for paid parking, but more as a way to help institute a viable paid parking system - which shouldn't have taken as much discussion and time as it has to this point. We have a whole team of people who are "planning" for the future of the island - but none of them can come up with a viable paid parking system - I have serious concerns about the future of the island. If we cannot figure out how to park cars how can we control the ocean.

As a community we need more available parking spaces and since the signs that are around town, and the issuance of tickets, doesn't seem to be making an impact on the availability of parking it seems like it is time to go with a more dramatic impact. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has statutes for vehicle towing, the Department of Public Utilities has guidelines, so we would not be reinventing the wheel here on Nantucket, just following a system of rules and guidelines that are already established and functional.

Robert Bates