East Lansing City Council approved a resolution to finance a new project of citywide computerized parking equipment on Tuesday. The financing, through Installment Finance Purchasing, will be up to $1.7 million.
Currently, some public parking lots are metered and some are run by cashiers. Once the new equipment is installed, they will all go without cashiers, director of planning, building and development Tim Dempsey said at the meeting.
Some lots will have pay-by-foot kiosks and others will be pay-in-lane. There will be cameras and an AV system so if there is an issue, customers can press a button and be connected to help from supervisors in an office nearby. The cameras will allow supervisors to see the problem and either help internally or send someone out to the parking lot.
Switching from cashier stations to payment kiosks will cost the part-time, minimum wage jobs, Dempsey said.
“The process of that will eliminate the need for booth attendants,” Dempsey said. “Some of them will be laid off, but some of them will be rehired because we will need additional supervisors.”
Dempsey estimated the lack of cashiers will save the city between $50,000 to $75,000 annually.
Councilmembers deliberated the necessity of the system. Councilmember Shanna Draheim wanted to push the decision back after the city’s Financial Health Review Team made a recommendation, but Dempsey and parking administrator Caleb Sharrow said the matter was urgent because of the timing of construction.
“We have it set up now for the construction period to fall between football seasons just barely,” Sharrow said. “That’s a really big deal for downtown parking. That’s a really big deal. If we move this back a couple of months, then you’re overlapping into the next football season and that will just make things more complicated.”
Dempsey also said the matter was urgent because of the state of current equipment. He said some of it is close to falling apart.
“We’re at the point (where) the equipment failures are at such a rapid rate,” Dempsey said. “They literally have equipment working with duct tape, fixing it and holding pieces together — it’s gotten that bad. That expresses a sense of urgency.”
Councilmember Susan Woods said she also thought to push back the decision, but ultimately voted yes Tuesday because of the revenue from football season parking.
“It was really about timing,” Woods said. “At first I agreed (with Draheim) but the football parking argument is valid, because that’s an enormous amount of income.”
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