Visitors to Rehoboth Beach who want to park near the beach will have a new option this summer: credit cards.
The second draft of the 2008-09 city budget also calls for a 19 percent increase in refuse rates and a 50 percent increase for seasonal parking permits.
The city is planning to use a credit card system on all the Reino parking meters on the first two blocks of Rehoboth Avenue. The city also proposes to raise parking meter rates from $1 an hour to $2 an hour. The increase would bring the city around $415,000 in projected revenue, which the commissioners agreed to put into a capital improvement pool that would help fund various projects such as Boardwalk refurbishment, the city municipal complex and wastewater disposal.
City Manager Greg Ferrese said the city hopes it can eventually outfit all of Rehoboth Avenue meters with credit card systems and possibly the beach block of Wilmington, Baltimore, Maryland and Delaware avenues as well. However, Ferrese did not know if the city would be able to make the necessary changes by this summer.
At the city’s second meeting on the 2008-09 budget, Jeff Rock, sales representative for Reino, presented the new meters, as well as future parking meter options. Rock discussed wireless parking meter management, vehicle sensing technology that would help stop meter feeding, new hand-held ticket writers and setting up a pay-at-any-meter system. While the commissioners made no commitments, city officials hope to eventually to enable all the meters on Rehoboth Avenue to take credit cards.
Rock said the city could order meters with refurbished heads to get a lower price and get them in time for the summer. While the head would be refurbished, all the interior parts would be brand new, he said.
Besides the parking meters, the only other changes to the budget the commissioners agreed to were additional increases in parking permit fees and refuse fees. The commissioners agreed to extend the parking permit season until Sept. 30, although the season will continue to begin around the middle of May.
The proposed permit increases will be:
• seasonal transferable – from $100 to $150,
• seasonal nontransferable – from $75 to $125,
• weekly – from $30 to $45,
• three-day weekend – from $20 to $30,
• weekend daily – from $10 to $13 and
• weekday daily – from $5 to $8.
Refuse rates would increase from $185 to $220 for year-round residential, from $170 to $200 for seasonal properties and from $30 to $35 for cabins and rooms. Commercial refuse rates would increase by between $55 and $85 depending on the size and nature of the business. Restaurants would pay $38 per seat, a $4 increase, while hotels would pay $33 per room, an increase of $3.
The city’s projected combined revenue from the increases would be about $107,000.
The next budget meeting will be held at 1 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 19, in the city commissioners’ room.
source: capegazette.com