Bellaire to start chalking tires
Council votes to remove parking meters
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BELLAIRE — Village Council voted to do away with its parking meters and instead move to chalking tires in its business district.
During a regular meeting Thursday, council voted 4-3 to get rid of the parking meters, which have been the topic of much discussion and debate over the years. Voting in favor of removal were Jerry Olack, Elizabeth Dugmore, Donnie Maupin and Mayor Vince DiFabrizio. Opposed were Jerry Fisher, Nikki Liberatore and Michael Doyle.
The village's meter reader quit last summer, and another person who was tasked with making sure the ticket fees were collected also resigned. This has left the ticket office unstaffed for at least six months.
Instead of hiring more people to take care of the tickets, the village plans to have on-duty police officers monitor the business district. For example, if an area is designated two-hour parking, a parked vehicle's tire will be chalked by an officer.
If the vehicle is not moved after that two hours, the vehicle would receive a ticket, Police Chief Dick Flanagan said.
Doyle expressed concern about how the removal of the meters would impact the quality of parking downtown. His business's office is downtown, and he said he often hears complaints from other business owners and customers about the lack of parking. Apparently some people park their vehicles for several hours without moving them.
Flanagan noted some employees park their vehicles and then "feed the meters" until their shifts are done.
"I think we should get rid of them," DiFabrizio said when making his tie-breaking vote on the matter.
After the vote was taken, Dugmore noted the village could always go back to having meters in the future if chalking tires did not work out.
"At this point, I think they need to go," she said.
DiFabrizio said he called for the vote because the village had gone back and forth on the issue for long enough.
In other matters, the village received notice from the Ohio Department of Transportation about its Ohio Bridge Partnership program. The program, ODOT said, covers the cost of replacing a qualifying bridge.
Meanwhile, Fisher said the finance committee met recently and discussed how the water department continues to operate in the red.
"We've got to do something about it. The easiest way is to raise the rates, but that's not the way to do it. We've got to get something figured out," Fisher said.
A couple years ago, the village's water operator, Sue Bell, told council the village was operating with a huge water loss, and that faulty meters were to blame, along with likely leaks in the system.