Time’s up for people who think they can skip putting a quarter
into the parking meter in Downtown Bradford, but some of the meters
may soon be a thing of the past.

On Wednesday, The Era contacted Bradford City Councilman Dan
Costello about a comment made at Tuesday’s council meeting
regarding possibly removing parking meters from Chautauqua Place.
Costello explained councilmen Tom Riel and Bob Onuffer were the
ones who came up with the idea, so The Era contacted them by phone
for a further explanation.

All three men explained they are looking at changing a few
things about parking in the downtown.

Onuffer and Riel started looking into the feasibility of
removing meters from streets that are residential now, but have
meters because businesses had been located there in the past.
Chautauqua Place and part of Congress Street are two locations
being considered by the councilmen.

“There are so many apartments on Chautauqua Place,” Onuffer
said. “If (the residents) have a vehicle, they have to pay to park
there. Same with Emery Towers. We don’t feel that people are
parking up there and walking all the way downtown.”

“I think it’s silly to have parking meters on Chautauqua Place
when there’s not one commercial business on Chautauqua Place,” Riel
added, saying there is very little off-street parking available for
residents there.

“This will just make it easier for people to live there,”
Costello said. “Those places all had businesses at one time, but
all that’s changed and now it’s all residential. You’ve got to give
people a chance to have a place to park without having to pay.”

He added that at this point, the measure is under consideration
and would have to be approved by the council.

Meanwhile, the meters that are in the downtown must be obeyed –
or else, Costello said.

“We’re enforcing downtown parking,” he said. “It’s just a matter
of everyone being equal and everybody having to pay for parking.
That’s the biggest complaint I’ve had from merchants. Now it’s
everybody is equal.”

Riel said he accompanied Jill Howard, the parking enforcement
officer, on her daily rounds recently to let people know that
parking laws will be enforced.

“I walked around with the parking enforcement officer a couple
of weeks ago and informed everybody they needed to put money in the
meter,” Riel said. He added that he went into several businesses
and informed the owners that it was necessary to put money in the
meters. “Some of the business owners said, ‘Really?'”

“That’s the law,” Costello said. “That’s the way it’s going to
be. That’s the way we feel on council … some of us feel on council.
It should be equal. No one should be picked out.

“If you are going to go downtown, bring a quarter with you, or a
dime depending on how long you are going to be there,” Costello
added.

“There shouldn’t be anybody allowed to not get a ticket unless
its somebody on government business,” Onuffer agreed.

In addition to fairness, revenue is another motivating factor
for stepping up parking enforcement, Costello said.

“The revenue was down a little bit,” he said. “We want the
numbers to be strong. We’ve asked the police department to step up
their enforcement on (vehicles) changing over the streets (for
alternate side parking).

“We’re asking those in charge of that revenue to pay a little
more attention to it. One of our revenues is fines,” he said.

All three councilmen stressed that the changes being considered
are to make things more equitable.

“Either ticket everyone equally or you do what probably should
be done and rip all the meters out,” Riel said. “I think council
should seriously look at the possibility of taking out all the
meters downtown. Why milk or bleed a Main Street that is suffering
already? Taking the meters out could only help draw people
downtown.

“That doesn’t mean there wouldn’t be parking enforcement, just
no meters,” he said.

He wants to know what local merchants think about it, and plans
to ask them.

“I will be going independently door to door, merchant to
merchant, on Main Street next week conducting a survey on parking
and other downtown issues,” Riel said, stressing he will not be
representing council, but acting independently.