Council to Tackle Parking Revenue Shortfall Tonight

Nearly seven months after the City of Mill Valley to address a budget shortfall, the City Council decides tonight if more changes are needed to boost lagging revenue across the board.

The city instituted a series of reforms last August in an effort to both reduce the parking program’s deficit and encourage local residents to shop downtown. The changes included expanding parking meter enforcement to weekends and raising parking ticket fines and parking meter rates.

It also included the new Resident Shopper Vehicle Permit (RSVP) program, which lets 94941 residents to buy a sticker that allows them to park in a metered spot for two hours for free. The program sought to add a new source of revenue while hoping to draw local residents away from the free parking-laden malls in Corte Madera.

But revenue has fallen short on all fronts, and , whose department administers the RSVP program and enforces parking citywide, will ask the council tonight if more changes are needed.

“We’re not quite where we want to be but I don’t think too far off the mark,” Bernal said. "The success of the RSVP program is having a bit of an effect on those users feeding the meters.”

The RSVP program had a strong showing in its first few months but its sales have tapered off recently, falling about 100 permits short of expectations to sell 2,800 permits and generate $84,000 in revenue. The city projects the program to generate $75,000 in the 2010-2011 fiscal year.

But the while the program hasn’t missed the mark by much, revenue from parking meters and parking tickets is a bigger concern.

The city had predicted that although locals who bought RSVP permits wouldn’t be feeding the meters, a hike in meter rates from 50 cents to 75 cents an hour would more than offset that. The city predicted that parking meter revenue would rise from $247,538 in 2009-2010 to $359,000 in 2010-2011. It has fallen far short of that, however, with mid-year revenues at $140,475, on pace for falling $78,000 shy of expectations.

Likewise, parking ticket revenue was projected to decrease from $246,647 in 2009-2010 to $230,000 in 2010-2011. But the first six months of the fiscal year has generated a mere $77,470, far short of the expected $115,000 at the midyear point.

“I happen to think the RSVP program has been successful and that it should continue,” Mayor Ken Wachtel said. “But we have to look at the impact it is having on the revenue we’re getting from the meters and fines.”

Wachtel said the city has to balance the revenue generated by expanded parking meter enforcement with the additional cost of weekend meter enforcement. So far, the city’s expenses are slightly lower than the approximately $341,000 projected for 2010-2011.

Bernal said low parking ticket revenues can be attributed, in part, to the city’s method of chalking the tires of cars with RSVP stickers to determine if they’ve moved within the two-hour limit, which Bernal said isn’t the most efficient method. Bold drivers can wipe the chalk off their tires, and a recent injury to one of the city’s parking enforcement officers has reduced the amount of tire chalking the city has done.

Bernal said he hopes to get council approval for a more efficient system that is similar in some ways to the police department's on its Dodge Charger car. The system would use license plates to track car movement at metered spaces, Bernal said, but would come with an approximate cost of $60,000. Bernal said he’d hope to land some grant funding to pay for the system with the council’s approval.

Changing the system by which the city tracks whether cars with RSVP stickers move within the two-hour limit isn’t a short-term fix, Bernal said.

The council has a range of options in the short term. It could decide to raise the cost of the RSVP stickers from $30 to $40. The higher price was initially recommended by the Business Advisory Board, which spearheaded the program, but the council reduced the price tag.

The council could also expand the RSVP program to non-94941 residents, hoping the program’s revenue spikes to counteract the lost meter revenue.

Wachtel said he generally favored that idea.

“It encourages people to come here,” he said. “If people are dissuaded from coming to downtown Mill Valley because there are parking meters and there is free parking at the two malls in Corte Madera, I don’t see any downside (to expanding RSVP).”

In recent months, the city has been selling for $19, but sales haven’t been great – less than 200 permits, according to Bernal. That can partly be attributed to the fact that during the holidays, as usual, so local residents were not spurred to buy the permits. But it could also be an indicator that those who would buy the permits have already done so.

The city continues to sell RSVP stickers through its website, at the during business hours and occasionally at the , including Friday afternoon from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Residents can drive-up, sign-up, and drive away with one of the RSVP permits. The pro-rated cost of the permit is $19 each for the first two vehicles, $43 each for a third or fourth vehicle permit.

The City Council meets tonight at 7:30 upstairs at City Hall. The meeting will also be on the city’s website.