Published January 30, 2019

By MARK SARDELLA

WAKEFIELD — A systematic approach to parking enforcement with an eye towards increasing the turnover of parking spaces in the town’s business districts could be just around the corner.

The Town Council this week discussed several possible measures that had arisen out of a couple of parking forums held last fall where merchants and citizens had an opportunity to weigh in.

Town Councilor Paul DiNocco said that those forums produced consensus that the current one-hour parking limit should be changed to a uniform two-hour limit Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. The limit would be aimed primarily at the business districts but would effectively apply townwide, DiNocco said. He noted however, that this could potentially conflict with certain Traffic Advisory Committee recommendations that had been approved over the years. He said that he would want some time to go through those regulations with Police Lt. Steven Skory, chairman of the TAC, in order to reconcile those conflicts.

DiNocco stressed that any recommended changes to parking time limits would be aimed at increasing turnover of parking spaces. Coupled with those changes would be stricter enforcement, including the possible hiring of two civilian parking enforcement officers and the use of high-tech, hand-held devices to read the plate numbers of vehicles and record the time. When a violation occurs, the device can spit out a ticket.

Town Councilor Edward Dombroski has been speaking with the manufacturer of the hand-held devices and expects to have a report on the cost at the next Town Council meeting. He stressed that the idea was to make sure that parking enforcement pays for itself and covers the cost of the devices and the part-time enforcement personnel. 

Police Lt. Steven Skory noted that over the summer, police stepped up enforcement in the downtown and there has been a noticeable reduction in violations since then.

Town Councilor Ann Santos said that she did not see these measures as a cure-all for the downtown parking issue. She also wondered how these measures would mesh within the planned major improvements to the downtown infrastructure.

Dombroski said that the only goal at this point was to try to increase the turnover rate in downtown parking spaces. He said that the results of that effort could help to inform the downtown infrastructure project. 

Another idea that came out of the parking forums, DiNocco said, was the cleanup of a town owned lot near Omelette Headquarters for the use of downtown merchants and their employees, rather than using potential customer spaces. Since the addition of lighting and other improvements to that lot, it is being actively used by merchants, DiNocco added. He did note, however, that spaces set aside for merchants along Common Street were not being used.

DiNocco also mentioned the undefined town-owned lot behind Brightview. He suggested that at some point that lot should be given some definition similar to the municipal lot between Water and Lincoln streets. 

DiNocco and Skory said that they would meet before the Feb. 11 Town Council meeting and go over any areas where a two-hour parking limit might conflict with other parking regulations. Dombroski said that he would also have a recommendation on the hand-held devices ready for the board’s next meeting.