By Michelle Fields, Standard Correspondent
Sixteen village employees will have their own parking lot and everyone who parks at metered spots in the village will have the opportunity to pay with a credit card in the very near future according to a new parking policy and resolution approved by village trustees this week.
Applications are currently being taken for the new employee parking area on Mechanic Street. “So far six requests have been turned in,” Trustee Jeffrey Kahn said. The permits will be given out by lottery if more than 16 people make requests. The cost is $200 for six months, about half the cost of feeding the meters all day.
Trustees agreed that if a permit holder will not be using a space during a vacation or other time, the permit can be given to someone else to use. However, if anyone parks in the employee lot without a permit there is a $50 fine.
The new electronic parking meters, which are on order will allow for coins or a credit card payment. When paying by credit card, a minimum payment of $1 is required in order to cover the credit card fees. The only location in the village which will have a limited amount of time are the spaces in front of the post office, which will remain at 12 minutes. All other parking spaces in the village will have unlimited time as long as the meters are paid.
“The credit card parking is going to go very, very well,” Village Manager Phil Swanson said.
Swanson said that parking lines will be added between Town Hall and the Middle Covered Bridge in order to more clearly delineate parking spaces and, therefore, to provide the maximum amount of parking in that area.
Trustees agreed to add traffic cones near the Middle Covered Bridge Cross walk on Wednesdays during the Markets on the Green due to recent accidents. “Since the Market on the Green has been happening this summer there have been two accidents near the cross walk at the covered bridge,” Woodstock Chamber of Commerce Director Beth Finlayson told Trustees as she made the request for cones. She added that no one has been hurt thus far, but the cones could remind people to look for pedestrians.
The Woodstock Police Department has been awarded three grants from the Governor’s Highway Safety Program. The first grant for $5,000 is for the Click it or Ticket seatbelt safety program, the second for $7,500 is for DUI enforcement, and the final $6,000 is an equipment grant that will allow for the purchase of another speed cart which can be hauled to different locations in the town.
Trustees will hold a special meeting on the morning of October 18 in order to amend the Village budget. “When I put the budget together, I failed to include the purchase of a police car,” Swanson told Trustees. The $32,000 to purchase the car was set-aside in the budget but the purchase of the car was not listed on the spending side. The meeting will be warned for the required 30 days to make that change, which will not increase the budget.
Trustees voted to accept a grant for $36,405.60 to pave Prospect Street next year. The grant requires a $9,000 local match. While some trustees questioned whether it was worth spending money on Prospect, which is not in as bad a shape as other village streets, Swanson noted that the state will not assist with work on class 3 local highways (village roads) but only larger class 2 roads.
Trustee Chair Candace Coburn suggested adding the $9,000 to the paving budget next year rather than taking that amount out of other projects. “It will help us in the future but not hurt any street coming up.”
In other business, plans for construction of the snow dump will move forward this fall as a $129,000 bid from Willey Earth Moving was approved to do the work. Trustees approved a banner to be placed across Central Street by the Woodstock Area Chamber of Commerce for eight days stating “Welcome Women’s World Cup” while that event is taking place in Killington over Thanksgiving weekend. The next Coffee with the Police Chief will take place on Sept. 30 from 7:30 to 9 a.m. at Maplefields.
This article first appeared in the September 15, 2016 edition of the Vermont Standard.