Council requests change inon-street parking sticker program

By Adam Swift

City Council President Pro Tem Joanne McKenna wants the Traffic Commission to lower the number of resident parking stickers that can be issued to a single household.

Under the current parking regulations, buildings with six or fewer units are eligible for up to 10 resident parking stickers per unit, provided the vehicles are registered to the address. For a six-unit apartment building, this means that potentially 60 resident parking stickers could be issued.

“I just learned this about a month ago that one address, a single-family home, can have up to 10 resident stickers, which I think is ridiculous, so I am asking to lower that to six,” said McKenna.

Currently, restrictions can be placed on apartment buildings with seven or more units in the city, but single-family, two-family, and all buildings up to six units are eligible for the 10 stickers per unit.

“If it is a building with six units or less, each unit is unrestricted, they can get up to 10 stickers per unit,” said Babo.

While that number of stickers is allowed, Babo said the cars must be registered to the address, and that there are very few instances where the larger buildings have close to that many permits issued per unit.

“We don’t run into it often,” said Babo. “There are a few buildings in the city, they are more two-family and three-family houses that have, some have up to nine.”

The council voted in favor of McKenna’s motion, sending the recommendation for the change in parking regulations to the Traffic Commission.

In other parking department related news, Councilor-at-Large Marc Silvestri introduced a motion asking that the City Council award a Certificate of Merit to Parking Control Officer Marco Basta for administering Narcan to an unresponsive person and ultimately saving this individual’s life on June 13.

Silvestri said Basta routinely goes above and beyond the duties of his job, adding that he recently assisted a motorist in changing a flat tire.

Babo thanked the council for the recognition of Basta, and said the parking department staff as a whole does its best to serve the residents of the city, even if it is for a task that goes beyond their job description.