OBSERVER Photo A new parking system in the village of Fredonia will no longer require meters.

Fredonia Mayor Michael Ferguson continued to back a plan to revamp the downtown parking fee system this week, but emphasized that any changes are a long way off because more research is needed.

“I’ve started trying to research what communities our size are doing,” said Ferguson at a Fredonia Board of Trustees workshop. The mayor added that he wants to start a subcommittee to look at downtown parking.

The board recently authorized Ferguson to start talks with a company called HONK for a parking fee system that would rely on street signs, QR codes and smartphones.

“I do want to address the fact that there has been misinformation — surprise — with regards to seniors on the parking,” Ferguson continued. “If you go on the HONK website, there are options that the village can decide on, or we can come up with our own plan.”

Ferguson said he did a check of parking at meters in downtown Fredonia on Tuesday. “We’re getting occasional phone calls of ‘You shouldn’t do this, what are you doing, you’re taking all the parking away.’ There were 36 empty parking meters…at 2 o’ clock. I came by at 4 o’clock, there were 38 empty parking meters. So, we don’t have an abundance of people and less parking spaces.”

The mayor added, “We’re also not taking away free parking. There’s free parking right in front of this building (Village Hall), right in front of the church on Church Street, the side street here (Day Street), as well as other side streets around the community.”

Ferguson stated that “We’re doing basically nothing more than replacing the meters with this program.” Referencing people who don’t have a smartphone, Ferguson said the village would likely offer a sticker program for vehicles that is similar to a college parking identification program.

“I don’t think this is something that we should decide in a period of a couple days,” the mayor concluded. “I think it needs to be thoroughly researched.”

Michelle Twichell, the Board of Trustees’ resident dissident, rebutted Ferguson. Twichell was the lone trustee to vote against the resolution authorizing talks with HONK.

“I have received numerous phone calls about this,” she said. “People are telling me, ‘Right now, (it’s) 25 cents for a half hour, 50 cents for an hour.’ Now if you raise it to $2 … you look at the surrounding communities around here, what are they charging?” She said Dunkirk and Westfield charge nothing in their downtowns.

Twichell continued, “There are people that are elderly that do not have phones, there are people that go to the chiropractor’s office over here — for them to park in the free parking spots (behind Main Street businesses) is a real issue for people. And people that are handicapped, that have handicapped people in wheelchairs, to wheel them across the street — it just doesn’t make sense for me.

“Who’s going to pay $2 to go and run in a business, maybe even to pick up some food, for two minutes?”

Ferguson interjected, “That’s why we said we have to determine what the rate’s going to be. And I talked to the two people you talked to, and they were perfectly fine with the idea we came up with.”

“I’m not done yet talking,” Twichell said. “I really feel that this will kill our downtown even further. Right now, we hardly have any businesses downtown. Who’s going to want to open up a business when parking outside their business is going to cost more than anyplace else around this area?”

Twichell concluded, “I am totally against this. I do want to say that.”

Trustee Jon Espersen responded, “We haven’t even talked about fees, so where’s this $2 coming from? Also, like the mayor said, you can get a permit– you don’t have to have a phone, you buy a permit and you can park wherever you want to park.”

Twichell claimed that if Fredonia still charged 50 cents an hour for parking under its proposed new agreement with HONK, the village would incur a debt of $250 a month. Ferguson replied, “There’s no community you can park in that charges you 50 cents an hour. That’s the problem — everybody wants it the way it was 20 years ago. 20 years ago is not 20 years ago anymore. Our costs have gone up exponentially in virtually every department, and yet we don’t want to raise prices.”

He soon added, “I resent the (statement) that we don’t have businesses. We have four, no more than five empty spaces in this community. There’s business there somewhere. Not all of them are open, all day and all night — but compared to many communities,we have a quite full downtown parking lot. I would imagine when you go out to lunch in this community, those people would argue with you that there’s plenty of businesses going on.”

Espersen wound down the conversation. “We’re arguing about something that’s not even in existence. Why don’t we talk about creating something and then we can discuss it? Now, we don’t even know what we are arguing about.”

“I did want to speak for the people who have called me with concerns,” responded Twichell.