THREE WAYS you can help us reach 2,500 signatures:
- Copy and send the petition link to your contacts, HERE.
- Post the petition to your Facebook and other social sites, HERE.
- Promote the petition, HERE.
Onward!
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BELOW ...
- Letter to The Retrospect from Brian Mulholland, Haddonfield resident
- Letter to The Haddonfield Sun from Walter Weidenbacher, Haddonfield resident
- Letter to The Retrospect from David Hunter, petition originator
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Letter to the Editor of The Retrospect
From Brian Mulholland
September 29, 2023
Oh joy! As mayor Colleen Bianco-Bezich boasted in her Mayor’s Message in a recent local publication, under the new parking policy, Sunday parking is now “free!”
Surprise, mayor, parking on Sunday is already free. Later in her letter the mayor crowed that “we,” apparently referring to the commissioners, would continue to offer free parking during the holiday season “a plus for retail businesses, vendors and residents!” Isn’t it, then, a minus for retail businesses, vendors and residents that the new policy eliminates free parking on Saturdays – surely the busiest shopping day of the week – and extends weekday paid parking from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., the prime dining out hours?
Another feature of the new system, understandably not cited by the mayor, is the loss of that cherished free first 12 minutes that used to allow us to pick up the pizza we ordered, or stop into the post office, or accomplish any other mini-errand without parting with 50 cents or risking a fine.
The mayor seems absolutely giddy about the new parking policy. I am not.
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Letter to the Editor of The Haddonfield Sun
From Walter Weidenbacher
October 4, 2023
I just love it when something good happens in Haddonfield. And something good did happen when David Hunter, publisher of the indispensable Haddonfield.today triweekly, which all town residents receive via snail mail, started the petition to restore free parking on Saturdays.
Yes, free parking on Saturdays – a Haddonfield tradition – has been done away with, and the petition to reverse course is being well-received and passed around like nothing in recent memory, and promises to be a game-changer simply because it aims at stemming the tides of change – some entirely unnecessary – being imposed on lovely lovely olde Haddonfield.
This newest imposition, designed solely to generate revenue, reveals the hidden ugliness of so-called entitlements generally; that once people receive something for “free,” they invariably feel entitled to it, and resent having it taken away, often leading to considerable discord. We’re seeing considerable discord now, as was evident at last night’s commissioners’ meeting, when residents and merchants aired their objections, asking the commissioners to rescind the whole ridiculous idea. The commissioners will do well to listen to the people and do the right thing.
As Mr. Hunter so delicately describes the new parking fee, “the dumbest move by elected officials in NJ since Governor Jim Florio imposed a tax on toilet paper in 1990. (It cost him a second term, four years later.)”
The more the merrier. Please add your signature to the more than 1500 who have already signed, in just five days, at chng.it/54CZ4j8NDy. There you can comment and read the comments of others.
Mr. Hunter’s reasons for signing the petition are listed at wawego.me/08033park.
Commissioners: Please restore free parking on Saturdays and weekday evenings. It’s the right thing to do, and everybody, but everybody, will love you for it.
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Letter to the Editor of The Retrospect
From David Hunter
September 29, 2023
The Borough of Haddonfield has totally botched its upgrade from parking meters to pay-by-app and pay-at-kiosk systems. Don’t take my word for it. Here are a few tales from the trenches:
- A Haddonfield merchant: “Free parking on the weekend, especially Saturday, and after 6 p.m during the week was definitely one of the biggest draws to our shops. The new pay-for-parking system, which requires shoppers to pay on Saturdays and in the evenings until 8 p.m., literally destroys one of the biggest draws for this town.”
- A Haddonfield resident: “Taking away the 12 free minutes – or the ability to throw a nickel in the meter – hurts all of us who make quick stops to the businesses in town. You must pay for an hour now.” Plus a 35¢ fee to the vendor.
- A Haddonfield librarian: “Taking away the meters with our free 12 minutes, putting up the ugly signs on every pole, making people walk pretty far to find a kiosk – all of it is very upsetting ... All these parking changes were done without any warning or notification and I can tell you as a library employee that every single patron who comes in, regardless of age, complains about the new parking system. Not one single person thinks it’s a good idea.”
- A Haddonfield store manager: “We’re an in-and-out business. Customers used to be able to park, press the button for 12 free minutes, walk in, drop off their stuff, walk out, and drive off. Now, some customers are going to our competitor in Westmont, where they can get 15 minutes for free on a meter right outside the store. We’re losing business.”
Speaking of Westmont ... the meters on Haddon Avenue – shiny, relatively new black things that look like they’re built to last until the next millennium – offer 15 minutes for free and an hour for a quarter, up to two hours. Granted, you have to pay on Saturday as well, but for 15 minutes free and a quarter per hour, who cares? Especially when the payment mechanism is so familiar and easy to use.
If that system works in Haddon Township, why wouldn’t it work in Haddonfield? Why was it necessary to upgrade to a new technology that’s not user-friendly (especially for those who are tech-challenged and those who don’t have smartphones), that’s expensive (more than twice as much as before), that creates more problems than it solves, and that gives out-of-town Haddonfield-haters a new excuse to rip us?
It appears that the purpose of parking meters in Haddonfield has changed, and changed dramatically. Originally, and until recently, the fundamental reason for having parking meters was to regulate parking on weekdays. It was to discourage those who work in the downtown Monday through Friday from parking for hours at a time – or all day – near shops, restaurants, the post office, and the library.
That’s why we had long-term parking behind borough hall, for example. It’s why businesses were able to purchase annual permits, so employees could park in designated, remote areas of some parking lots. It’s why meters near the post office provided free parking for five minutes, to enable people who had PO boxes to get in, get their mail, and get out. It’s why most meters provided free parking for 12 minutes, so shoppers could slip into a dry cleaner to pick up their laundry, for example, or slip into a restaurant to pick up a carry-out meal, or slip into the library to check out a book or pick up a child from an after school activity.
The purpose of parking meters was to keep long-term parkers away from the center of the town, and to enable those who needed to stop briefly to do so conveniently and economically.
Clearly, that purpose has changed. Clearly, the new purpose of metered parking in Haddonfield is to feed the municipal coffers.
Now that the same parking rules apply all over town, a raft of unintended consequences is being revealed.
- Now, a person who works in an office building on Kings Highway can pull up right in front of his building at 9 a.m. and pay for three hours. Then, while sitting at his desk at noon, he can use his smartphone to extend that time for another three hours. Was that intended?
- Now, a technician who works in a nail salon on S. Haddon Avenue can park in front of the post office at 9 a.m., pay for three hours, and deny the short-term use of that space to a business owner who goes to the post office at 10 a.m. each day to pick up her mail. Was that intended?
Incidentally, some business owners drive to the post office five or even six days a week to get their mail. If they pay the minimum amount to park each time – $1.35 – it will cost them more than $400 per year to do something that until now they’ve been able to do – quickly and conveniently – for free.
And here’s another incidentally. The parking period throughout town now ends at 8 o’clock – two hours later than in the past. Most meetings in the borough hall start at 7 or 7:30 p.m. So now, folks who participate in nighttime meetings at the borough hall – volunteer members of boards and commissions and members of the public alike – will have to pay for the privilege.
Nobody anywhere likes to pay for parking. And nobody likes dramatic change. But the unhappiness of Haddonfield business owners and customers is not attributable either to the act of paying or to the fact of change. It’s attributable to pay- ing way too much for changes that are demonstrably bad.
If Social Security is the third rail of American politics – touch it and die – parking is the third rail of local government. If you tinker with it, you’d better get it right.
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Author's Note: An example in the letter published in The Retrospect about an "out-of-town customer who parked on N. Haddon Ave, just off [Kings] Highway” contained an error of fact. It has been removed from the above letter.