Parking Officials Vote 4-0 To Recommend Keeping Permit Fees Flat

Parking officials last week voted unanimously to recommend holding fees for both commuter and commercial lots flat for next fiscal year. If approved by the selectmen, the Parking Commission’s recommendations would see permit rates for the Lumberyard, Richmond Hill, Talmadge Hill, Park Street, Morse Court and Telephone Lots remain as follows:

 

Commission Chair Keith Richey and members Peter Ogilvie, Laura Budd and Jennifer Donovan voted 4-0 in favor of the recommendations. The Commission has one open seat. Regarding fees at the commuter lots, Richey said the town should “leave it alone in view of the recovery from the COVID crisis.”

As it is, the town has already extended the parking permits for those lots—Lumberyard, Richmond Hill and Talmadge Hill—through March 31 and also suspended metered parking in those lots through month’s end. (The selectmen are expected to take up the question of whether to continue those extensions through June 30.)

The Commission voted separately to recommend holding the fees for the “commercial” lots flat.

‘She Was Never Notified’: Longtime Parking Commissioner Out

First Selectman Kevin Moynihan has unceremoniously cast off a longtime volunteer from the municipal body that oversees off-street parking in New Canaan, according to one of its members. Moynihan never notified Parking Commissioner Pam Crum that she hadn’t been reappointed to the panel, according to Commissioner Peter Ogilvie. During the Commission’s regular meeting Jan. 7, Ogilvie said he was “disappointed in the Parking Commission and town government for not having any conversations whatsoever with Pam Crum.”

“This clearly has been in the works for months and she was never notified, she was never told that she was no longer on the Parking Commission until she got email from you just a couple of days ago, Keith,” Ogilvie said during the meeting, held via videoconference. He addressed Chair Keith Richey.

Town Upholds $30 Ticket Issued to Uber Eats Driver

Town officials this month upheld a $30 ticket issued to an Uber Eats driver who pulled into a no-parking zone outside Town Hall to pick up food from Ching’s Table. Vikar Vahora told members of the Parking Commission during a Nov. 5 appeal hearing that he’d circled the block twice before parking in the space up against the Town Hall driveway. “That was probably my first or second ride and I went right across the street from where Ching’s Table is and I was charging on my credit card and I actually attached the receipt to my ticket and my appeal, too, that it was only two minutes that I went in and went out and that when I was coming out you were already writing the ticket,” Vahora said during the hearing, held via videoconference. “I explained to the person that I am an Uber driver, I am new in this area, if you can new please let me go for this time and I will make sure that this will not be happening again.”

The Norwalk Man added that the ticket—issued at 1:58 p.m. on Sept.

Town Upholds $30 Parking Ticket Issued to New Canaan Woman Outside Dunkin Donuts

Town officials last week upheld a $30 ticket issued to a New Canaan woman who pulled into a no parking zone outside Dunkin Donuts on a Tuesday morning last month. Nataliya Oliynyk told members of the Parking Commission during her Nov. 5 appeal hearing that no parking spaces were available when she pulled her blue Prius not a yellow hash-marked area outside the Elm Street coffee shop around 10 a.m. on Oct. 6. Oliynyk was there to pick up her son, she said.