Parking took center stage at Kent City Council’s Dec. 18 session, with city leaders approving a number of tweaks.
City leaders approved the installation of parking meters in the downtown area in 2014. In a Nov. 20 letter to City Manager Dave Ruller, Community Development Director Bridget Susel noted that, since the pandemic, many small businesses have expressed concerns about the lack of foot traffic into their establishments.
She wrote that city staff have also tallied an uptick in complaints from people who have received parking citations after not being able to read the meters’ LCD screens during inclement weather.
Now, the city’s compliance officers will be permitted to “exercise discretion” when inclement weather or outside conditions make it difficult to read the meter screens. Based on their judgement, they may — or may not — issue a parking citation until weather conditions clear up enough to read the screens.
A second glitch involves people who pull into a metered spot where the previous motorist had purchased the maximum two hours, but had vacated the spot before the time was up. The meters will not allow time to be added until the full two hours previously purchased has expired.
The city’s solution is to reprogram the meters so people can purchase three hours of time.
Giving morning motorists a break, council also tweaked the hours people need to feed the meters. Payments will now be mandatory at 9 a.m. instead of at 8 a.m. on weekdays. Parking will remain free weekends, holidays “and other days designated by the mayor as parking holidays,” according to the ordinance.
With two dual-port electric vehicle charging stations to be installed at the new city hall, council set a four hour time limit for vehicles at each parking space and specified that the vehicles must be actively charging while parked.
Fees and payment methods for the electric vehicle charging stations have yet to be set.
Moving to one of the city’s residential streets, the city relaxed its policy of prohibiting parking anytime on the east side of Vine Street.
Parking will now be permitted on the east side of Vine Street from the end of the street north to Bowman Drive. Parking is still prohibited from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays on the west side of Vine Street from School Street north to Summit Street. Parking is also prohibited on the east side of Vine from Bowman Drive to Summit Street and on the west side of Vine Street from East School Street south to the end of Vine Street.
Council also:
- Authorized a 3% increase in the city’s sewer and water rates, beginning with the first billing cycle in January 2025. This harkens back to the council’s December 2022 approval of a 9% increase in water and sewer rates, with annual 3% hikes thereafter.
- Agreed to contribute funds for Kent’s fireworks display for 2025 Heritage Festival. The city contributes funds every year to the Kent Area Chamber of Commerce, which for the past 16 years has contracted with American Fireworks. The company has increased its prices from $16,900 to $18,600 for 2025. Council also agreed to pay $19,500 for the 2026 display and $20,475 for 2027.
- Gave Kent Fire Chief James Samels the green light to apply for a $591,536 FEMA grant to help fund the purchase of a 100-foot ladder truck. KFD’s current ladder truck is from 1994 “and the costs to maintain it have become more challenging,” he wrote in a Dec. 9 letter to council.
- The cost of a new truck exceeds $2 million, so it would help to get a quarter of the sum, along with training on the new vehicle, he informed council. Remaining costs would flow from KFD’s vehicle replacement fund and potential cost sharing with Kent State University and other partners, Samels wrote.
Wendy DiAlesandro is a former Record Publishing Co. reporter and contributing writer for The Portager.