By Jarret Liotta
Current and anticipated problems with parking today prompted Westport’s Downtown Plan Implementation Committee to form a new subcommittee aimed at addressing concerns.
The Downtown Plan Implementation Committee meeting today at Town Hall. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Jarret Liotta for WestportNow.com
“This may be the most important outcome of this whole committee — this subcommittee,” said member Ken Bernhard, following the suggestion made by Randy Herbertson, president of the Westport Downtown Merchants Association.
Several parking questions were raised for discussion, including the idea of paid parking in relation to downtown merchants taking up convenient spaces around Main Street simply by moving their cars every two hours.
“The feedback we’re getting is that two-hour parking doesn’t work,” Police Chief Foti Koskinas said, noting that paid parking could produce revenue and likewise encourage more workers to use the all-time parking spots on the south side of the Post Road and the Imperial Avenue lot.
“It’s working in other towns,” he said.
“I’m trying to give you the feedback of your customers,” he said, noting that people who have been ticketed complain they can’t have a meal and do shopping within the two-hour limit.
Matthew Mandell, Chamber of Commerce president, spoke against the idea, noting it would dissuade people from coming to Westport.
“We should be inviting people as much as possible,” he said.
“There is no decision about paid parking, but that can certainly be a discussion,” said Chairman Dewey Loselle, emphasizing, “There is no plan or discussion or recommendation for paid parking at this time.”
Likewise, Planning and Zoning Commission Member Chip Stephens expressed strong concern about parking due to new restaurants and renovations at The Westport Library.
“You have got some serious, serious issues coming up,” he said, recommending the subcommittee focus on all of downtown’s parking, at not just the Baldwin Lot and Parker-Harding Plaza, as was originally suggested.
The subcommittee will also be considering issues relating to electric chargers — something Peter Ratkiewich, Department of Public Works director, said needs clarification.
“We need to develop a townwide policy for chargers,” he said, noting issues of cost for maintenance and electricity have not been addressed.
Consequently, chargers are not being considered as part of reconstruction work in the Elm Street and Parker Harding lots, though he noted that spare conduits would be installed in the event decisions are made down the road to add them.
Initial work will also be underway soon to install trash compactors in Parker Harding, replacing the current dumpsters that have been issues of concern at time for litter and even vermin.
“There are a lot of little steps involved, (but) when the compactors come in, the dumpsters go out the same day,” he said, with employees to receive training in their use.
The committee unanimously approved recommending that the new Elm Street lot be named in honor of Sigrid Schultz.
Schultz, who had a home at 35 Elm St., was a pioneering journalist who, though Jewish, had firsthand interactions with high-ranking Nazi officials before World War II, including Adolf Hitler.
Ultimately fleeing to Westport after she came under suspicion of being a spy for the Allies, Schultz later willed her Elm Street property to the town.
She died in 1980 at the age of 87 after what the Chicago Tribune, for whom she wrote, said was two years of being bedridden in her Westport home.
