Changes to parking rules on Elm Street caused some confusion recently for a local worker.
DesignDot employee and Stamford resident Suzette Schepps told members of the Parking Commission at their most recent meeting that she had received a $25 ticket for parking on Elm for more than 90 minutes one weekday morning last month.
Under a change made formal with the installation of new signs, the legal parking time for most on-street spots downtown increased from 90 minutes to two hours.
Schepps said during her appeal hearing before the commission that though the town had voted to make the change prior to her being ticketed, the physical signs were not yet in place. She was running late for her first team meeting at the New Canaan location, parked in a diagonal spot on Elm at 10:10 a.m. and rushed inside, Schepps said.
After asking co-workers who reside in New Canaan about the parking situation, Schepps said she believed that she would not have an issue. Yet when she left, Schepps said, she noticed a ticket on her windshield, time-stamped 11:53 a.m.
“Due to the fact that the parking signs were not clearly visible from my parking spot and I was not familiar with the regulations, I asked the business owner as well as other New Canaan residents attending the meeting what the parking regulations were,” she told the commissioners during the Jan. 11 hearing, held at Town Hall.
Schepps added that a co-worker showed up to the meeting and left at the same time as her, but did not receive a parking violation.
Ultimately, the three Parking Commission members at the meeting—Chairman Keith Richey, Pamela Crum and Stuart Stringfellow—voted to void the ticket.
Referring to Parking Manager Stacy Miltenberg, Richey said: “I congratulate Stacy on excellent compliance with the rules.”
Miltenberg noted that the signs on Elm Street at that point still said 90 minutes, saying “the changes to parking on Elm are approved but do not go into effect until the signs are changed.”
Crum echoed that observation during the hearing, saying that “there were signs” where Schepps had parked.
Yet Richey and Stringfellow noted that Schepps lived out of town, that local news stories about the parking limit change had created some confusion and that Schepps herself was told by coworkers who are local that two hours was the new parking limit.
Commissioners Chris Hering and Peter Ogilvie were not in attendance.