BOISE, Idaho — On May 15, the City of Caldwell officially turned on their new parking meters installed in the city's downtown. However, after two weeks, some downtown business owners told KTVB they wanted them gone.
The city's intention for the meters was to improve traffic flow and eliminate "long-term parkers" being in one spot for hours. Previously, employees or other drivers parked in front of businesses for a long time, affecting customers' ability to go into certain stores.
But, now there's a new problem. People aren't coming in, business owners told KTVB.
In an attempt to reach city officials, business owners came together and sent a letter to the City of Caldwell, pleading for the meters to be removed. The petition has over 300 signatures from business owners, employees, and customers.
"It hasn't made us any busier at all," Karmella Martinez, the bookkeeper at Rostock Furniture, said. "In fact, the streets in front of the store seem a lot more empty than before."
And it's not necessarily a money issue, more of just an inconvenience for some, she said.
"The phone is ringing," she said because customers now would rather call and pay over the phone, instead of dealing with parking.
"Instead of coming in and paying, and chatting, and wandering around, and seeing what new things we have... they're less apt to walk around and take a look because they're more concerned about paying and getting out of their parking spot."
Her older clientele is confused with the meters, she said.
"They're coming into us and asking our employees how to use the parking meters," Martinez said. "One of us will have to run out there and walk somebody through how," Martinez said.
The rules are that you'll need to pay to park in the downtown area from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday.
The first 15 minutes are free, then it's $1 an hour. Sunday and holidays are free.
Stacie Ward, a Caldwell resident, used the meters for the first time today.
"It was kind of frustrating," she said. "We put the license plate in... And it just sat and thought loading, loading, loading. We sat there for probably two to three minutes, canceled it, tried it again."
She tried a second time and it failed again.
"After about, oh, I'd say seven, eight minutes... We ended up doing it on the scan code on your phone," she said. "That took another, I'd say two, two and a half minutes to get it to end."
Ward used just about all her fifteen minutes of free parking, just trying to pay.
The city sent this statement to KTVB:
"We strongly believe that the installation of parking meters downtown will benefit area by promoting the turnover of parking spaces. The city wants downtown Caldwell to remain vibrant and grow, but it will negatively impact their overall experience of visitors."
The city added they are taking feedback seriously and working with "parking management partner" to further develop the best plan.
"The ideal solution would be we take out all the parking meters, and we just forget that this funny little two weeks ever happened," Martinez said.
Ernie Seaton, the owner of Abracadabra, has been open for 16 years and said to get rid of the meters.
He is down 55 percent in sales since the meters went live, he told KTVB.
"Normally, like on Fridays... we just did $200," he said. "And we usually are close to $1,000. And that hasn't been happening."
He said if it doesn't improve, he might have to make the hard decision to close. He added that he's one of few owners facing that choice, and some already have.
To spread positivity during this time, Flying M, a coffee shop downtown, has a "take a quarter, leave a quarter" jar so those in a jam can still come in.
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