New parking meters for Lake Placid
By GEORGE EARL, Enterprise Staff WriterLAKE PLACID - The village board on Monday night awarded a $119,925 contract to MacKay Meters to install 15 multi-space parking meters downtown.
Board members voted 4-1 in favor of the plan and said the new meters will be put in place in about two months. The village had received six bids for the meters, and MacKay Meters offered the lowest cost.
The meters will replace all existing parking meters on Main Street from Saranac Avenue to the post office. One pay and display station will handle eight parking spaces and will accept U.S. and Canadian coins and credit cards.
Rogers pointed out that the machines can be easily adjusted to offer free parking on Christmas and display multiple foreign languages.
The contract with MacKay Meters is subject to a service agreement of $45 a month per meter to administer the meters remotely via Internet.
Village Trustee Peter Roy voted against awarding the contract, saying he wanted to wait for a second contract from MacKay Meters outlining the service agreement. The board instead voted to award the bid subject to the servicing terms verbally agreed upon between the village and MacKay Meters.
Wayne Johnston, owner of Ruthie's Run and an active member of the Lake Placid Business Association, said the business community is divided on the plan.
"I don't want everyone to think everything is cool on Main Street," Johnston said after the vote. "There was by no means a consensus among the business community, and there weren't answers to many questions."
Mayor Jamie Rogers said the board had deliberated over the issue for a long time and acknowledged that it was difficult to please everybody.
"This is the best solution for how Main Street functions, and these options will give you greater flexibility and allow the village to manage parking in a better way," Rogers said.
Contact George Earl at 891-2600 ext. 25 or gearl@adirondackdailyenterprise.com.
(Editor's note: This article has been corrected.)
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tarddersauce
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08-21-08 10:31 PM
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I dont mind offering customers quarters. But if you were to spend one day in a store on Main Street you would come to find out that most of the people who come in and ask, never come back to shop. And it is also the issue of running out of the quarters when a lot of people ask. You should see some of the looks we get when we tell people that we cannot spare them. The usually assume we are lying. I give them whenever people ask and I am nice about it. But that sure as heck does not mean I have to like it. I just feel that if the town is going to spend so much money on these meters, they should go top of the line and have them accept paper money as well.
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tourist
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08-20-08 12:02 PM
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And what will Jamie do with the 120 old meters? Will they appear by the beach or behind the Olympic Center or in the free lot on Main Streeet. It appears that there will be no free parking in Lake Placid. And another thing - paying $45 per month per meter for the company to monitor them on the internet is rediculous. That's $64,800 per year for the 120 meters..That appears to be inaddition to the police salaries who write the tickets. Does this also require a maintance person on site to repair the meters?
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Mencken
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08-20-08 10:20 AM
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I wish politicians would use the words that describe what they really mean. Come on, Jamie, "manage parking" is not high on any pol's list. Writing tickets may be, though that has not been LP tradition (are you moving this way?). Collecting change that might just cover the maintenance fee and salary of those doing the work does not seem sufficient. Downtown is losing out on traffic, and moves like this, and making that upper parking lot off-limits, are principally responsible. Oh well, maybe when revenues drop too far, you can just hike our taxes!
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logical
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08-20-08 7:25 AM
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Imagine very busy days turning in to extremely busy days just by smiling and replying "absolutely I have change for you sir/madam, I'm happy to help out a visitor to Lake Placid and thank you for stopping in to__________(insert name of your store here). It's just customer service folks not slight of hand.........
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tarddersauce
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08-19-08 5:57 PM
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As someone who works in one of the stores on Main Street, I really hope this eliminates people coming in and asking for quarters. I do not think it will since it doenst say the meters will accept bills but one can hope. Imagine very busy days at your job, having to stop and give people quarters.
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Isadoreknob
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08-19-08 11:51 AM
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What's in a name (or three) ?? First of all, it's MacKay Meters™ (not Mackey) and second of all, it's Wayne Johnston (who's Paul?) of the Lake Placid Business Association (not Main Street Business Association).
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