KINGSTON – After Mayor Steven Noble’s vision of automated parking kiosks was essentially squashed last month, due to an absent member of council during the vote, the item came up again Tuesday evening during the Kingston Common Council’s regular meeting, and with the presence of the previously absent alderman, the bonding resolution was passed 6-3.
There was a lengthy public comment period during the meeting, many of the speakers being from the business community who are torn as to whether the kiosks will be a benefit or a burden to them.
Ken Abatayo, owner of Traders of the Lost Art Inc., said he believes the mayor’s proposal of the kiosks being more friendly to visitors and residents is not as it was portrayed.
“If I’m paying 50 cents, and I’m ok with it, then the next time I go there on Sunday I have to pay a dollar. That doesn’t sound friendly,” Abatayo said. “It sounds kind of irresponsible. It sounds like maybe you don’t want me to come up here.”
Among the myriad of local business owners and residents who showed up to get their two cents in, Abatayo’s argument, by far, was not that of the greater community; however, the sentiment that the kiosks would be bad for business and be used as an “under the radar” way for the city to complement its general fund was.
Alderwoman Nina Dawson, who was originally for the kiosk bonding, took a step back.
“I can be called the teeter-totter person all day,” Dawson said. “It doesn’t bother me because if it ends up being right in my soul, and my gut, then it’s the right way for me to vote and that’s how I feel about it. Each night that we discuss this, more things are presented, which brings me to the point that, maybe, there needs to be more discussion.”
Regardless of how the council’s voting minority feels, the bonding is now approved and Common Council President James Noble said this conversation that has been going on for over a year, is now concluded.
“It’s been an ongoing discussion since October of last year to put it into the budget, to actually meter with the kiosks remote parking with the city and I think, at the same time, they were going to increase the rates just to get revenue so they can repair all the lots and do work that we need to do without amassing money from our general fund in there,” said Noble. “It’s mixed because you have business people that think that’ll hurt their business, and then you have people that feel that if their using it, they should be paying.”
