West Chester budget raises parking, trash concerns
Once in a while I diverge from senior and business subjects to address community business issues. This is one of those times and, for those who are used to the regular fare, I apologize for the detour.
A news item that attracted my interest recently hinges on the West Chester Borough budget for 2011-2012. The budget is up for consideration and public comment at tonight’s (7:30 p.m.) Finance Committee Meeting of Borough Council at Borough Hall. If approved by Council, it would be passed on Dec. 15.
I guess I have more than a passing interest in the subject since, from January 1992 to January 1996, I sat on West Chester’s Borough Council and chaired the Budget and Finance Committee. We passed four budgets without raising taxes but made some sacrifices that I really would not have liked to have faced. As one example, we contracted out trash collection privately for a while. We had no real choices then since we were limited by statute regarding raising taxes. We also moved Parking Enforcement from its place under the Police Department and placed it under Codes Enforcement. Since then the Parking Department has become a department of its own.
West Chester is once again facing difficult choices but the alternatives up for vote raise parking and trash collection in a different light.
The proposal for trash collection is the most straightforward. Under the budget proposed to be adopted by the Finance Committee tonight, no borough trash except recyclables and the one-item bulk trash pickup at the beginning of the month would be collected except in borough bags at a cost of $4 each.
For a household that disposes of two bags of trash per week, this means an effective tax increase of about $416 per year. Not all trash is recyclable. Poor families may not be able to afford the cost which may mean that their trash will gather at the curb awaiting pickup. The next step is not hard to imagine. Trash would not be collected and fines would be issued.
As to parking fines, the proposal for parking would include extending the time for metered parking in the downtown to 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday from its current 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and requiring fees from 5 to 10 p.m. on Saturdays with additional fees in the Bicentennial and Chestnut Street garages on Saturdays. For a difficult economy, downtown merchants are understandably concerned, but this is not the end of it.
Parking has always been a sticky issue in West Chester with some claiming that “there is no parking problem” to a position that I have heard recently that “there is a parking enforcement problem.”
The real problem is, of course, not the quarters in the meter but the ticket that greets the owner of the vehicle when he or she returns. There are 51 reasons (I counted them) for parking tickets to be issued in the borough.
The proposed borough budget anticipates $900,000 from parking meter revenue alone. When it is stated that the metered areas must be extended from the current downtown areas as is proposed and the times extended because it is necessary to raise money to run government, then parking revenue is not to regulate the flow. It is really a major portion of the tax base and there is reason for aggressive enforcement.
Here are some further comments. Budgeted at $550,000 is an expenditure to place solar panels (click site to enquire) on the new Chestnut Street Garage. As admirable as this project may be, in the current economy where everything might be on the table, $550,000 is very close to the amount ($581,704) that is expected to be raised by the $4 per bag trash fee. Couldn’t the solar panel project be delayed when other projects now are placed on hold?
A few weeks ago at a community dinner I became engrossed in a conversation with a friend who works with a social service agency that helps to place mostly disadvantaged people looking for work. She explained she asked one of her clients why she had not seen him in a while and he told her he was in jail. When she asked the charge, he said “parking tickets.”
“You mean they really send people to jail at taxpayer expense for parking fines?” I asked.
I did not research the subject further but, if it is true, we as taxpayers pay for more than a few quarters at a meter.
About the Author Janet Colliton
Esquire, Colliton Law Associates, P.C. Janet Colliton has practiced law for over 38 years, 37 of them in Chester County, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. Her practice, Colliton Law Associates, PC, is limited to elder law, Medicaid, including advice, applications and appeals, and other benefits planning including Veterans benefits, life care and special needs planning, guardianships, retirement, and estate planning and administration.