Westminster Common Council: Parking Meters will Stay, Design Standards Manual in the Works

The Westminster Common Council continued the parking meter debate, finally voting to leave the parking meters as they are on Main Street. Other decisions focused on accepting bids and making the city even "greener" by placing recycling bins downtown. Here are five take-aways from Monday night's Common Council meeting.

Water Run-Off Solutions Being Built into Design Manual

Councilmember Dennis Frazier suggested updating city code to require new and replacement sidewalks and driveways be built using porous cement, or a comparable product, to prevent run-off water issues.

"I think it's a good step for our city to take to prevent run-off water when we have downpours," Frazier said. "I hear other municipalities are heading in this direction as well." 

City Administrator Marge Wolf explained that the city staff is working on a design standards manual that will address this issue.

Public Works Director Jeffrey Glass said that anything the city can do to get as much run-off water in the ground, the better. When asked if he expected pushback from developers, Glass said that it's a possibility but there may be opportunities for trade-offs so everyone will be happy. 

Recycling Bins on Main Street

Frazier said that he would like to explore opportunities to put recycling bins on Main Street, adding that he is aware of groups that will provide the bins and empty them. 

Glass said that he was contacted by an advertisement firm that is interested in putting recycle bins on Main Street in Westminster, and in turn they will use it as a way to advertise.

"Marge [Wolf] and I talked about it and I believe the logistics of controlling what is being advertised has to be worked out yet," Glass said.

Councilmember Tony Chiavacci said that he is leery of the advertising scheme. 

"I love the idea of recycling downtown, I'm just not so sure I like the idea of using advertising to fund it. Remember, we're a nice charming small town, I'm not sure we want to have 'whatever' being advertised all the way up and down main street, it could really detract from the feel of downtown," Chiavacci said. 

Wolf said there are currently between 16 and 18 trash receptacles on Main Street. 

Mayor Utz said he is not opposed to the idea but he wants to make sure that whatever the city does, it is along the same design lines as the trash receptacles that are currently on Main Street.

Annual Roadway Paving Bid Accepted

The City of Westminster received four bids for building and resurfacing streets in Westminster. The amount budgeted for these projects is $1.4 million and the bids ranged from $1.39 million to $2.17 million. C.J. Miller provided the lowest bid and Glass said that he has been satisfied with their work for the city in the past.

Glass recommended that the council accept the lowest bid of $1.39 million as submitted by C.J. Miller. The council voted to accept the bid.

Glass added that the goal is to use this money ($1.4 million budgeted) to finish Middlebook and then go to Carroll Meadows. He said he is hoping to have the work start within a month. 

Water Treatment Plant Computer System Purchase

Glass explained that in 2010, Westminster took part in a pilot program being administered by the Maryland Center of Environmental Training. The result of the pilot program is a computer system that can manage water treatment plan processes.

According to Glass, the current system of human data collection and interpretation leaves a 30-45 day lag time to realize the effects of changes, including changes to chemical treatments and machine systems. The computer program essentially takes away that 30-45 day lag time and can calculate the effects of such changes in seconds.

The cost of the computer system is $48,000 but Glass said that a cost analysis showed that the city would save $17,000 to $20,000 per year in energy savings using the computer system. He added that the system is adaptable and expandable so it will upgrade with the new water treatment facility, which he said he expects may be operational in about two and a half years. 

Parking Meters on Main Street: They Aren't Going Anywhere.

Several months ago, CouncilMember Dennis Frazier recommended that the city remove parking meters on Main Street in order to bring more traffic to local businesses. Frazier said that he spoke with business owners on Main Street and they generally agree that people are put off by parking meters.

Other councilmembers have responded saying that the meters are necessary to turn traffic over, so people don't take a prime spot on Main Street and stay there all day.

Westminster Police Chief Jeffrey Spaulding said that the department has not been asked to calculate the cost of monitoring a two-hour parking limit versus monitoring meters. He added that it would be much more labor intensive to walk up and down Main Street all day marking tires with chalk as opposed to monitoring meters.

"I've written tens of thousands of parking tickets, I can attest that meters are much easier to manage," Spaulding said.  

Director of Planning Thomas Beyard said that when the parking meter discussion originally happened 10 years ago, decisions were made to monitor parking meters for limited hours (as opposed to 24 hours a day, seven days a week) and the ticket fees were based on an escalating scale, so that first-time offenders just get a warning. Beyard said these decisions were made specifically to turn traffic over during the day and to encourage people to come enjoy restaurants and bars in the evenings (with no meters in effect).

"We addressed the things you're talking about when we made this report 10 years ago," Beyard said. "I recommend that we do not eliminate the parking meters." 

In a vote, Frazier and Councilmember Paul Whitson elected to make changes to the parking meters on Main Street while councilmembers Halstad, Chiavacci and Robert Wack voted to leave the parking meters as they are. 

"I'm disappointed that it didn't get passed; however, there were some legitimate reasons why it didn't pass so I understand," Frazier said. "It hasn't been discussed in a while so I wanted to bring it up."