Government

Divided Parking Commission Votes 2-1 To Void New Canaan Man’s $25 Ticket

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A New Canaan man last week got out of a $25 parking ticket after telling officials that he had been mistakenly targeted by enforcement officers downtown. Peter McAleer told members of the Parking Commission during their regular meeting that he pays tickets when he’s in the wrong. Yet on the day in question, according to McAleer, he parked in his accustomed spot on Pine Street, where he works, at about 7 a.m. and stayed until 11 a.m., when he went to Stamford for a haircut and lunch. He returned at 12 p.m. and was parked back on Pine Street for about 10 minutes when he was issued a ticket for overtime parking. According to McAleer, the enforcement officer assumed, wrongly, that he’d been parked continuously in the same spot for the entire morning and into the afternoon.

Government

Parking Commission Upholds $50 Ticket for Darien Woman Who Parked the Wrong Way on Elm Street

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Parking officials last week voted unanimously to uphold a $50 ticket issued to a Darien woman who had parked the wrong way on Elm Street. The appellant, Janet Cling, told members of the Parking Commission at their regular meeting that she was in New Canaan with a newborn in the car on Dec. 11 (a Monday) when she pulled off of Park Street into the Starbucks lot and then continued into the last row of diagonal spaces on Elm Street. “We were just really quickly running into the Whitney Shop to pick up an ornament that my mother-in-law had ordered for her [the baby], personalized,” Cling told commissioners at their Jan. 11 meeting, held at Town Hall.

Government

Officials Void $25 Ticket for Woman Who Parked Too Long on Elm Street

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New Canaan’s Parking Commission voided a $25 overtime parking ticket at its most recent meeting after a Stamford woman said she wasn’t aware of Elm Street’s 90-minute parking limit and that there was no visible sign in front of the space where she parked her vehicle. Dr. Cheryl Gross provided a detailed account to the volunteer commission of how she parked her car on Elm Street on June 26 to attend a movie at The Playhouse with her parents and children. “I drove down South [Avenue] and made a left-hand turn [onto Elm Street] and parked in the first parking spot on the left-hand side,” she said. “There was this huge concrete structure [in front] that I think had flowers in it…I just remember thinking that we might bump our doors on it while getting out. It was a very tight fit.”

Gross noted that while she did see the structure, which Parking Superintendent Stacey Miltenberg explained was used to block off the Pop-Up Park, she didn’t notice any parking signs.

Business

Parking Officials Open Discussion on Increasing Parking Times on Elm Street from 90 Minutes to Two Hours

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New Canaan’s Parking Commission on Thursday broached the possibility of extending the parking limit in the heart of the downtown from 90 minutes to two hours due to the increasing requests of residents who dine, shop and conduct business downtown on a regular basis. Stacy Miltenberg, superintendent of the Parking Bureau, said she’s hearing residents who park on Elm Street voicing similar concerns to those that prompted officials to boost the limit on Main Street to two hours, namely, it’s “located in an area where there’s doctor’s offices, salons, and people sometimes need more than two hours and they can’t pay for it.”

“I have not heard anybody complain that they’ve never had enough time when they’re parking [at Main Street], so it seems to be working well,” Miltenberg told members of the commission during their regular meeting, held at Town Hall. Miltenberg said that in addition to residents coming into her office and telling her that when meeting with friends for coffee or a meal on Elm Street, often 90 minutes just isn’t enough, if the parking limit were increased, it would have a positive impact on parking enforcement employees. Therefore, she recommended that the parking limit for every downtown street should be two hours. “The streets are all different times,” she said.