Editor:
The new parking meter situation in Santa Monica is a disaster! I recently parked on Montana Avenue and put enough money in the meter for, what I thought, would cover the few errands I needed to attend to. On the way back to the car I spotted an item in a shop window that I considered purchasing. Unfortunately the meter was about to expire and I told the shop keeper I would return.
When I tried to put more funds in the meter they were rejected. Apparently the meter will not allow the same car to extend time even if the original time was less than the maximum allowed.
There were no other available meters in the area so I didn’t buy the item. A loss for the store and for the area.
How many times must this happen every day?
Hopefully the City Council will reconsider this silly policy.
Richard Hirsch
Santa Monica
Very good points.
Not to mention that the meters often reset and make it look as though you haven’t paid when you have and then you receive one of those dreaded $60 dollar tickets. This happened to my husband and apparently a lot of other people. He spent hours proving it to the City and they agreed that there meters had malfunctioned. I have read and heard about this happening all over the City. Yet, the City claims they have made no written or formal complaints to the meter company regarding these problems. The City is also being charged an outrageous fee by the company that manages the meters for credit card processing. And in a time when people need jobs, these meters take away jobs and instead give literally millions to a corporation that does very little to earn it. Swipe your card and give the company running the meters about 3/4 of every dollar paid.