Chris Hering

Parking Commission Votes 3-2 in Favor of Extending Main Street Loading Zone from Half-Day to Full-Day

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Saying the change will ease traffic and send a clearer message to non-commercial drivers, officials are recommending that an area on Main Street that serves as a loading zone for half of the day become a full-day loading zone. In addition to extending the time of the loading zone at Main Street and East Avenue, members of the Parking Commission are recommending that the area out front of Organika be striped as a clear signal to motorists, who often are ticketed there. The proposal originated with the Parking Bureau and was supported by a 3-2 vote on the Commission at the appointed body’s May 2 meeting. 

As it is now, because the loading zone operates from 7 to 11 a.m. and then coverts to regular two-hour parking, the town can’t indicate beyond signage—for example, by painting the curb or street—that it’s a designated area for trucks, commissioners said. But if the loading zone extends to 3 p.m., more can be done to make it clearer to motorists that they can’t park there during the day. In the afternoon, because the loading zone is not in effect and regular cars park there, “the trucks get there, they are blocking in the cars, they are parking on East Avenue and blocking the traffic going down East Avenue,” Parking Manager Stacy Miltenberg told commissioners at the meeting, held in Town Hall.

Commission Votes 3-2 To Recommend Metered Parking on Main and Elm

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Saying it didn’t make sense for downtown New Canaan’s best parking spaces to be free, town officials this month voted to recommend installing meters on Main and Elm Streets. The Parking Commission as part of its 3-2 vote at the May 2 meeting also is recommending that the spaces running along the northern edge of Morse Court, which now offer free 15-minute parking, also be metered. “By giving away free parking on the main streets, we create a perverse incentive for people to not use parking in the peripheral lots that are designed to take the load off [Elm and Main Streets],” Commissioner Chris Hering said at the meeting, held in Town Hall. Hering voted in favor of the change, along with Commissioners Stuart Stringfellow and Peter Ogilvie (who long advocacy for this idea was recorded in a recent 0684-Radi0 podcast). Chairman Keith Richey and Commissioner Pam Crum voted against the recommendation.

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Editorial: A Change of Leadership on the Parking Commission

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“Leadership is about vision and responsibility, not power.” —Seth Berkley

New Canaan needs a change of leadership on the Parking Commission. 

Chairman Keith Richey is to be commended for the length of his volunteer service on the appointed body, which works closely with the New Canaan Parking Bureau and makes recommendations about traffic circulation and off-street lots, including fees for permits and violations, and also hears ticket appeals. He was appointed July 21, 1998, according to records on file in the Town Clerk’s office, and elected chairman March 3, 1999. Yet Richey has failed to create a long-term vision for parking in New Canaan at a time when such forward-thinking is sorely needed, has failed even on minor matters to build consensus within the Commission and has failed by temperament and in practice to collaborate with or support his counterparts in Town Hall—a shortcoming that crystallized last week in his gross mishandling of an important matter now before the town, punctuated by menacing and inappropriate treatment of a municipal department head. New Canaan needs to have a frank discussion about whether its parking rules should change—the times at which enforcement starts and ends, for example, whether those who overstay should be granted a fixed “grace period” or even whether the town should introduce some form of free parking. 

Yet in railing against officers for enforcing parking rules that he himself is responsible for recommending, in wrangling with a parking manager at a public meeting after forcing her into a defensive stance and, after that department head stood her ground and attempted to lighten the mood of the meeting, in issuing a vague and menacing admonition for her to “be careful,” Richey showed himself to be unfit to hold the office of chairman. 

He should step down. If he won’t, we call on the Board of Selectmen to vote him off of the Commission, as per the Town Charter.

Board of Selectmen

Devereaux: Change Parking Rules If Needed, But Don’t Tell Enforcement Officers ‘To Bend’

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Citing a widely discussed, heated exchange at a recent public meeting, Selectman Kit Devereaux on Tuesday commended enforcement officers in the New Canaan Parking Bureau. 

The Bureau “is supposed to be enforcing the rules that are in effect and if there is a feeling that the rules don’t work, then the rules need to be changed, not that the the Parking Commission needs to bend,” Devereaux said during a regular Board of Selectmen meeting, held at Town Hall. She referred to comments made by Parking Commission Chairman Keith Richey during that appointed body’s May 2 meeting. 

Saying downtown New Canaan had become “a police state” with respect to enforcement, with the Bureau’s officers “running around” to ticket people, Richey called for “more leniency” toward motorists violating parking rules. Parking Manager Stacy Miltenberg responded that enforcement officers are already lenient and reasonable in the face of drivers who disregard parking rules as well as requests to move, and that the Bureau routinely voids tickets, while one fellow Commissioner told Richey it was unfair to be vague about enforcement instead of proposing formal changes to the regulations. After Miltenberg defended the Bureau and its officers, Richey used menacing language in addressing her. News of the exchange generated dozens of comments on social media and in threads on NewCanaanite.com.

Chris Hering

‘We Are Being Reasonable’: Facing Rebuke from Commission Chairman, Parking Manager Defends Enforcement 

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During a tense meeting last week that included menacing language from an appointed official, the head of New Canaan’s Parking Bureau defended the town’s enforcement officers against accusations that they’re aggressive and sneaky about issuing tickets. 

Not only do enforcement officers ask motorists to move prior to ticketing them, but many tickets are voided by the Parking Bureau before they ever come before the appointed body that oversees the town department, Parking Manager Stacy Miltenberg said Thursday night. “We give leniency,” Miltenberg said during the Parking Commission’s regular meeting, held in Town Hall. 

“If somebody is sitting in the car and in a no parking zone, we ask them to move. Let me tell you what the staff and I am encountering by these people out on they street: They don’t want to move. Excuse me for being like this, but we are taking such crap from these people that you don’t see the other side and I have to defend the department. We are not out there—we’re short-staffed to begin with and we are not out there watching people and sneaking up on people.