City GOP Takes To The Streets To Fight Car Reg Garage Fee

CONCORD, NH — City Republicans have become activated in recent days attempting to stop a bill which would allow parking garage repair costs to be added to every car registration in the city of Concord. State Sen. Dan Feltes, D-Concord, and state Rep. Stephen Shurtleff, D-Penacook, are two of the sponsors of SB 587 which proposes lowering the population requirement from 50,000 to 40,000 for a city to collect an additional motor vehicle registration permit fees for the construction, operation, and maintenance of parking facilities. Currently, Manchester and Nashua, the state’s two largest cities, are the only communities that can pass on garage repair costs to people who register vehicles.

The lowered threshold would allow Concord – at around 43,000 residents – the ability to increase car registrations to pay for repairs, whether residents use the garages or not.

In a leaflet that is being distributed across the city, the Concord GOP blames “poor management” which has left the city’s parking fund “nearly depleted and our garages in disrepair.” Officials, the org stated, are scrambling for new revenue after already approving parking fee increases to some of the highest of any community in New Hampshire.

“The majority of spaces in our downtown garages are leased to local businesses and filled with employees,” the leaflet stated. “Many of those employees live outside of Concord. They would pay nothing extra – only you would pay the new parking surcharge on your vehicle registration.”

City Republicans estimate the cost would be about $150 per vehicle – on top of already high vehicle registration costs.

Garage and lot maintenance comes out of a dedicated fund set aside to make repairs with revenue derived from parking fees and tickets. The city, according to its two recent parking studies, believes it has worked to reduce expenses. But the fund balance has taken a nosedive since FY2007, with expenditures growing at a higher rate than revenues. Connected developers in the city have also received long-term leases for parking spaces at way below the market cost – keeping badly needed monies out of the fund.

If approved by the state Senate, the Concord City Council would need to hold a public hearing and vote on whether or not to implement the fee – something that is quite probable considering this is the second year in a row that Feltes has requested the change (a similar bill – SB 174 – was rejected last year) and Shurtleff is an at-large city council.

A hearing will be held at 9 a.m. on Feb. 7, 2018, at the Statehouse in Room 100 before the state Senate Ways And Means Committee.

Ward 2 City Councilor Allan Herschlag – an opponent of the proposal – wrote extensively about the bill in a post on Patch last month, saying that the city taxpayers had already spent nearly $14 million to spiff up Main Street, in an effort to improve development, but should not now be required to pay a surcharge to fix garages, too.

Parking fees, the leaflet noted, will also be rising in the city. Currently, parking costs 75 cents an hour on-street and 50 cents in garages. Beginning on July 1, 2018, on-street parking fees will increase to $1 per hour and remain at 50 cents in garages – the same structures that need the repair funds.

The city will also change the hours for ticketing enforcement from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. to 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. People shopping downtown on Saturdays will also have to pay for parking between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. – parking that, historically, has been free. Garages will remain free on Saturdays.

Expired meter ticket costs – already ridiculously high – are increasing to $15.

Lease holders who use the garages are also seeing a slight increase, the first in 13 years, according to city documents. A covered lease space is increasing by $18 a month to $130. Uncovered lease spaces are seeing a $10.50 monthly increase to $97.50.

As bad as these increases are – and seem to go against the concept of getting people to shop in the new multi-million downtown – they could have been worse: Recommendations two years ago proposed increasing rates to $1.75 an hour on Main Street, from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. six days a week.

Image via Concord GOP.