Jackson parking meter haul plummets

With at least 1 in 10 parking meters inoperable, Jackson’s annual revenue from meter change has plummeted by about $312,000 in 15 years.

Former meter repairmen described a stressful work environment with little support to maintain the meters, and one worker even using his own tools to make repairs.

“It’s been just hectic,” said Johnny Stiff, who was maintenance supervisor for the parking meter division for nearly 20 years. “Ever since 2005, it’s just been on a downward spiral.”

Last fiscal year, Jackson received $154,230 in revenue from about 1,200 parking meters. To compare, Oxford earned $470,902 in revenue from just 286 parking meters last year.

“We’re not getting near the revenue we should, and I think there are number of reasons for it,” Councilman Ashby Foote said. “A fresh look at the parking meter division is way overdue.”

After repeated requests for interviews, Public Works Director Keisha Powell would not comment, and city spokeswoman Shelia Byrd said Mayor Tony Yarber, who took office in April 2014, was unavailable.

The city reports 117 of its 1,106 meters don’t work. An additional 85 meters are unaccounted for and either have been taken down for lock repairs or because of construction, Byrd said. She didn’t provide additional information on how many of those meters are broken, but the actual number of meters out of service could be as high as 202.

“What has become apparent is that this is a project that has started and stopped at multiple points over the years,” Council President Melvin Priester Jr. said. “People pay attention to it right around budget time, or whoever the current mayor is will pay attention to it briefly and commission a study and then there’s no follow-through.”

Foote advocated for an audit of the parking meter division, and Priester said he recalled the city had completed both a study and audit of the department in the last five years.

The Clarion-Ledger filed a records request for an audit that Stiff said was completed last year, but the city responded that no such audit existed. Byrd said that the city hadn’t performed any audits or studies of the department or hired an external group to do so in the last five years.

During that time, the city has spent no more than $4,800 on maintenance per year, and for two years, the amount spent on repairing meters dipped down to about $1,340, according to city data obtained through a records request.

“The fact they only spent about $5,000 — even though we have a goal not to spend a whole lot of money — is probably a sign they’re not repairing parking meters and they’re not functioning,” Foote said. “One of the big issues is actually collecting the money and making sure it actually gets back to cash registers and to the city government. I wonder if that’s happening.”

Stiff worked as a maintenance supervisor for the parking meter division until a year ago, when he was transferred to Hawkins Field, where he worked until he was fired several months later. Stiff said he was transferred when the public works department conducted an audit of the parking meter division to examine declining revenue — the audit Byrd said never occurred. Powell’s explanation for Stiff’s dismissal was that he failed to do his job, he said.

Stiff said the division received $9,000 a year to go toward meter repairs, and it didn’t go far. When he first started working with the department, if a meter was broken beyond workers’ abilities to repair them, they would ship the equipment to the manufacturer to fix. In recent years, the department stopped shipping the meters because they couldn’t afford the repairs.

“There was a chance the company would get the meters and not get paid for what was done to them,” said Ferlon Van Buren, who worked for the division in 2012. “It was just trying to do as much as we could with what we had on hand at the time.”

When it came to tools, the city gave the department a drill, but that was it, Van Buren said. Stiff would bring tools from home, and the men would borrow equipment from Hawkins Field Airport.

“We were kind of supposed to have a workshop area. When I first came on, it was more or less a dusty garage-looking area, dusty as in thick layers of dust that couldn’t be taken care of by one person at a time,” Van Buren said. “Eventually, we were able to convince our supervisor to try to install proper lighting and give us more work tables so that we could have a proper work space to do what we needed to do.”

In 2001, the software that workers used to track maintenance of each meter crashed, forcing employees to keep records by hand, Stiff said, and the city bought a replacement program but never installed it.

Stiff attributed the division’s revenue loss to several factors — decreased parking enforcement and ongoing perceptions that the meters don’t work. He also expressed concerns about state and city workers using the spots without filling meters.

“That’s money you’re losing,” he said. “Twenty employees per week over the years — that adds up. Even though I told my supervisor, nothing was done about it.”

Police cars parked in metered spots are a familiar sight surrounding the downtown police department. JPD spokeswoman Colendula Green said nearby construction has limited officers’ parking options.

“They have vehicles parked at meters, but they’re also supposed to feed meters, so there should be money in the meters,” she said.

The number of parking enforcement officers has also gone down over time, from five to two, Jackson Police Chief Lee Vance said. The two officers stop working before 5 p.m. while motorists are still expected to feed meters, but other officers can write parking tickets, he said.

“Whether or not it’s enough is subjective,” Vance said of the department’s parking enforcement. “Some may think we do too much, and some may think it’s not enough. Parking in general downtown is a challenge, and we try to manage with the resources we have, to be completely honest with you.”

The overall perception that meters are broken also has been an issue, Van Buren said.

“Eventually it gets around that none of the meters work, so people up and ignore them and get more frustrated when meters are in working order in those areas and they get parking tickets,” he said.

Asked how long before broken meters are repaired, Byrd released the following statement on behalf of the city: “When a meter is reported as non-working, our goal is to get it back functioning as soon as possible. However, if the meter will be out of service for more than a week, we will remove a meter head from a reserved meter location and place it in a non-reserved location to continue collecting revenue.”

The Jackson City Council has discussed starting over from scratch and buying new meters that would accept payments from credit and debit cards.

“I do think it’s an opportunity for Jackson to upgrade its system and generate more revenue for the city while also making it more user friendly for people who come downtown, who oftentimes don’t have change,” Foote said.

Priester said he believes meters that allow card payments could increase revenue and that outsourcing the service to an outside company could be another long-term solution.

“We want to have follow-through right now because of the financial situation of the city,” he said. “I think we’ve got to make sure in the short run our meters are working.”

Contact Mollie Bryant at mbryant2@gannett.com or at 601-961-7251. Follow @MollieEBryant on Twitter.

PARKING METER ROUTES

According to the city, employees repair parking meters when issues are reported and as they cover the following routes:

•Route A: Capitol, Lamar, West, Congress, President, State, Roach and Farish

•Route B: Pearl, Mill, Roach, Farish, Lamar, West, Congress, President and State

•Route C: Amite, Mississippi, Lamar, President, Griffith, West, Yazoo and Congress

•Route D: Pascagoula, Tombigbee, State, President, West, Lamar, Farish, Congress and Roach