Published: May 19, 2008 10:32 pm            

CITY COUNCIL: New life for parking meters

Despite threats, pilot will continue this summer

The Niagara Falls City Council and Photo Violation Technologies have agreed to continue operating nearly 100 parking meters downtown for at least another six months, bringing an end to a tumultuous week that saw both sides threaten to pull the plug on the pilot program.

A motion to end negotiations with Photo Violation and order the removal of the digital meters was tabled at Monday’s council meeting and replaced with a resolution to extend the pilot’s contract until November. Council Chairman Samuel Fruscione voted against the tabling and extension, but said he’s satisfied with the outcome.

“Every now and then, you have to do something like this,” said Fruscione, who put the original motion on the agenda to provide some “negative reinforcement” for Photo Violation to address concerns.

In response, Photo Violation officials sent a letter to the city criticizing Fruscione of misrepresenting the real reasons the trial has had problems, and that the city has failed to live up to its obligations included in the contract.

“Photo Violation Technologies has made every effort to not direct, lay blame, or highlight the City of Niagara Falls as a cause for the difficulties experienced during this trial,” wrote James Scott, vice president of installations and operations for the Vancouver, B.C.-based company. “PVT has worked very hard and allocated many resources toward overcoming the issues not completed by (the city) and National Power Grid to complete a successful trial.”

Photo Violation matched Fruscione’s motion over the weekend by threatening it would be the one to end the trial and begin removing meters from city streets beginning noon Monday.

“We didn’t want to be kicked out for something we didn’t do,” company President Fred Mitschele said.

The threat set off a whirlwind of negotiations over 24 hours between the city and company that ended shortly before the council’s 4 p.m. worksession Monday. At that point, City Administrator Bill Bradberry and Mayor Paul Dyster said they were willing to recommend a contract extension and conceded that the city hadn’t provided some of the requirements in the initial agreement.

“We wound up in a situation that’s not really about parking, it’s about good faith,” Bradberry said after the worksession. “(Photo Violation) didn’t have a fair playing field on which to operate the trial.”

The city entered into an agreement with Photo Violation in December 2006 to install 94 parking meters downtown with the understanding they would be operational by Memorial Day 2007. The free trial offer meant the meters would be installed and operated for the first six months at no cost to the city, which would then have the option of purchasing the technology or entering into a shared-revenue agreement.

The high-tech meters, which can operate wirelessly and allow motorists to pay with cash or credit cards, weren’t brought online until July 4, 2007, due to what Photo Violation has identified as unexpected issues with power sources and National Grid.

Since then, city officials have remained critical of the company and questioned whether the technology was working properly. A lack of an enforcement system to collect money from parking violations has also been a point of contention, but was revealed in the letter to be the city’s responsibility.

“All of the issues are actually in the city’s realm,” Scott said Monday. “We are only responsible for providing the equipment and training city workers how to use it.”

Fruscione said Photo Violation estimated that 1,000 potential parking violations went uncollected this past weekend. The council chairman also retracted some of his criticism of the company, saying the mayor’s administration shares 50 percent of the blame too.

“They both had equal responsibility and the administration wasn’t doing its share of the job,” Fruscione said.

One of the reasons for that is the pilot began prior to Dyster’s administration so there was a misunderstanding on the city’s obligations, Bradberry said. However, the administration is now complying with all of Photo Violation’s requests, which include lobbying to National Grid for adequate power supply, instituting a ticket enforcement system and training city workers to operate the machines.

“We want to preserve the integrity of the city and show that we play fair and strive for a good working relationship with businesses,” Bradberry said.

        

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