The City of Newburgh in August 2022 installed new digital parking meters, replacing the old coin feed meters. Almost two years later, meters continue to be a concern for residents and business owners alike.

Members of the community came before the city council on Monday, June 10 to continue expressing their frustrations over the meters. Newburgh Mercantile owner Jacqui Watkins requested from city council to review the meters and the overall system. “My numbers went down 30% in one month as soon as those meters were installed,” said Watkins.

Resident and business owner Eric Jarmann requested from the city a report and data about the parking meters with information about the finances, payments in parking zones and suggesting a committee to be created to oversee the program. “The meters just give yet another reason for people to be like no, I’m not going,” said Jarmann.

With public comment addressing the parking meters, Mayor Torrance Harvey paused and gave the floor to City Chief of Staff Mike Neppl to provide some data and information on the parking meters.

“Our most recent year we received total parking meter revenue of $336,000 at the meter revenue of $216,000. That’s about a $200,000 increase from the last full year of data pre-COVID,” said Neppl. “It equates to about one percent of the property tax levy. We would need to raise property taxes one percent to make up for that lost revenue if the meters were taken offline all-together. I don’t think that’s what we’re talking about but just to give some baseline consideration.”

“We know that the first year that we metered the waterfront, we received about 1.4 million visitors according to data that we have recently acquired from a company that we’re contracting with,” Neppl continued.

During the council meeting on May 28, residents spoke about the difficulty of usage, referencing times assisting the elderly who did not immediately understand the system. A resident submitted letters from local businesses to the council for their review about their grievances about the meters.

“The parking meters are very hard for some people to figure out. I’ve run across the street so many times, shown people how to do it, it’s just not that easy for some people. Everybody’s not computer literate,” said Tom Roberts.

Mikey Jackson, ower of 2 Alices, shared his experiences about customers complaining about them or having to explain the meters to visitors several times.

The city parking meters first went live and active in August of 2022, transitioning from the previous coin fed meters to meters with digital capabilities such as using credit/debit cards or virtual wallets. The chargers were installed by the IPS Group, a technology company specializing in parking management.

Many of the parking meters are located along Broadway and Liberty Street corridor, Prospect St, Front St. and Grand St. Several meters are also located along the city waterfront area. Municipal and privately owned lots located in the city have not had meters installed.

The digital meters featured a Pay by Plate system, meaning customers enter their license plate information, their length of time and depending on the location, enter a zone number located on the actual kiosk. The Passport app is an additional tool residents and visitors can use to pay the meters.