New parking pay station will take plastic

Now that a vandal has delivered the death blow to the pay station at La Conner’s public parking lot, the Town Council voted unanimously to replace it on Tuesday.

Before the old obsolete yellow box gave up the ghost earlier this month, it had taken in nearly $19,000 in $3-per-day-fees so far this year.

Council member Bill Stokes noted that it might have brought in even more had it not been broken during the recent Art’s Alive! festival.

The council authorized the purchase of a snazzy new pay station from Northwest Parking Equipment Company, which can be delivered and installed for just over $13,000. It will run on debit and credit cards, just like the ones in most other cities. Maintenance on it will be around $2,200 per year – comparable to the cost of upkeep on the old one.

Since there will never be cash inside the new machine, it should be a less attractive target for dope heads who try to break into things like ATMs and parking lot pay stations that take coins and currency.

Also, each day the new pay station will tally up the day’s $3 transactions and deposit the money via wireless phone directly into the town’s bank account.

The old clunker, purchased for $9,000 in 2003, took paper money and gave hard-to-come-by dollar coins in change. It also took two public works staff members to service it every day.

“We had lots of problems with it,” Public Works Director Brian Lease told the council. He said that every time someone shoved in a Canadian coin or a beat up dollar bill, it would jam.

The new pay station will call public works on their cell phones anytime it encounters a problem and Lease will be able to program it from his desk.

Councilwoman MaryLee Chamberlain said, “it sounds like a win-win and there’s a chance our revenues would be even higher.”

Parking lot fees help pay for the town’s parking lot, which is something town residents rarely use since most walk to get where they’re going in town. To build the parking lot as an amenity for visitors, the town took out a bond in 2003 and has been paying off the loan at the rate of about $31,000 per year. The parking lot bond is scheduled to be paid off in 2017.