Art of parking: Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates will be asking his city manager to look into extending parking meter hours in downtown, the university area and the Gourmet Ghetto along Shattuck Avenue, to 10 p.m.
Currently it's free to park after 6 p.m., but Bates thinks there is money to be made in the later hours from the diners, sports fans and theatergoers who flock to the areas after dark.
Bates said the meter money would go to help the city's "flowering" downtown art scene and maybe even a new car-share program as well.
Of course, keeping the meters running an extra four hours also will mean parking officers handing out more $30 parking tickets - which also means more money for the city.
And probably more meters as well.
Monday, April 07, 2008
Boooooooo!
From Matier and Ross in the Chronicle:
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Ironic. the city gives up a parking space for protesting once a week. And...
ReplyDelete"Berkeley is finding that having its own foreign policy isn't cheap. The city's recent dustup with the U.S. Marine Corps has so far cost the city more than $200,000, while businesses say they've been slammed by related protests.
And that's on top of the $1 million the city spends annually on domestic and foreign policy matters hatched by its 45 citizen commissions, which outnumber those in virtually every other city in America and debate everything from regime change in Iran to the plight of nonneutered dogs.
"
San Francisco Chronicle. April 3, 2008.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/03/MNFUVUMVN.DTL