Steve's Market Wins Fight Over Parking Meters

The popular and neighboring businesses won a victory in the Salem parking wars Monday night.

Besieged by more than against putting in four-hour parking meters in front of the market, the mayor and a city council committee put a stop to the meters at the market and nearby businesses, including the U.S. Post Office.

“The community has spoken,” said Tom Daniel, the city's economic development manager, who headed the parking study task force. “The poles (for the new meters) need to come out. We will tell the contractor.”

The city's new parking plan is in the process of being implemented. New smart meters and smart computer software for the parking garages are expected to be installed by the end of June. The city will then conduct a 90-day assessment of how the plan is working and ask the Council to make changes.

Steve's Quality Market at 36 Margin St. to fight plans by the city to install four-hour parking meters in place of signs that limit parking to 15 minutes in spaces in front and beside the store. Other businesses and neighborhood activitists joined in the fight.

Ward 2 Councilor Michael Sosnowski convened his council committee on ordinances, licenses and legal affairs to review the city's new parking plan and specifically to review the four-hour meters being installed on Margin and Gedney streets.

Daniel, City Planner Lynn Duncan and Parking Director Jim Hacker attended the committee hearing. Daniel and Duncan outlined the rationale behind the four-hour meters, saying it was designed to simplify a complex set of parking rules in the city.

Mayor Concedes Margin Meters Must Go

Before the committee convened, . But in the letter, dated April 19, she conceded that the four-hour meters in front of Steve's Market and the U.S. Post Office should not be implemented.

Jason Silva, the mayor's chief of staff, said, “It is the concensus of the community that the meters should not be placed there.”

The mayor did not ask that the meters on Gedney Street be removed, but there was no indication that she would object if they were also removed.

“I want them off Gedney Street,” Sosnowski told Daniel.

About 20 residents appeared at the hearing, including four barbers who work at a shop on Gedney Street. They voiced concerns that the shop would lose business if four-hour meters were installed on the street.

On a motion by Ward 7 Councilor Joe O'Keefe, the committee voted four to zero to recommend to the full council that the meters on both Margin Street in front of Steve's Market and the Post Office and the meters on Gedney Street be removed.

“I like the way they did it. It's fair,” said Peter Ingemi, owner of Steve's Market. “In our area it is different than in the rest of downtown. The way it is now works.”

Jodie Fenton, who is part of the family that has owned the market for more than 100 years, thanked the community for all its support. She said the mayor's office was receptive to their approach. “We are really honored by all the citizens who have come out and supported us,” Fenton said.

90-Day Evaluation Process

Several of the council members worried that the 90-day evaluation period on the parking plan will not begin until July 1 and end Oct. 1, just as the town is ramping up for what Derby Lofts resident Shirley Walker called “the first day of the Halloween madness.”

Sosnowski also was concerned that by the time the evaluation is completed, it will be late in the year for many businesses.

Duncan promised that a report on the 90-day evaluation would be sent to the council by mid-October. At the suggestion of several residents and councilors, she and Daniel also agreed that they would not wait the full 90 days to resolve any glaring problems with the new parking plan.

The city's new parking plan, developed by a 14-member task force and an expensive national parking consultant, is trying to change the way Salemites and visitors park by hiking fees and limiting hours in more popular areas.

The goal, Daniel explained, is to have at least one free space in every block. To do that, the plan would motivate parkers to utilize spaces with lower rates in less popular parking areas.

He told the council members that even at the peak parking times — mid mornings on Thursdays — there are about 700 open parking spaces in the downtown area. "We do not have a supply issue. It is how the supply is being used," Daniel said.

City staffers and members of the parking task force said the plan Salem is implementing has worked in other cities where it has been tried.

But change is never easy, said Patricia Zaido, executive director of the Salem Partnership and a member of the parking task force.

Zaido and Kate Fox with Destination Salem, another task force member, urged the council not to make changes in the plan until the 90-day evaluation process is completed by the end of September.

Sosnowski said his committee will also take up soon other parking issues, including parking on Federal Street near the state courthouse.