Downtown Parking Receipts to Pay Vendor, DPW Expenses

Last summer, Department of Public Works Director Michael K. Stankovich, Mayor James J. Fiorentini and LAZ General Manager Todd Gilbert outlined the revised downtown parking plan.

Spending for the city’s downtown parking program during the current fiscal year is before the Haverhill City Council Tuesday night.

Councilors are being asked to appropriate $200,000 from the city’s parking services receipts account to, among other things, fund downtown parking management services from vendor LAZ Parking, Boston. The city is paying LAZ a flat $120,000 annual fee and, according to Chief of Staff David S. Van Dam, the remaining $80,000 would be administered by Division of Public Works Director Michael K. Staknovich for “maintenance and capital” expenses. He told WHAV they include “cleaning sidewalks and parking lots” as well as “replace signage, parking space restriping and numbering and maintain meter kiosks,” including paper and ink supplies for the meter system.

“This expense will be paid by parking revenues,” Mayor James J. Fiorentini wrote in a memo to councilors.

WHAV reported last August the city switched parking vendors at the beginning of that month, replacing Standard Parking with LAZ Parking. The announcement came during discussions between the city and the council’s Administration and Finance Committee on a “compromise” downtown parking plan which ultimately fell shy of a required six vote majority to pass in November. The city is paying LAZ a flat $120,000 annual fee rather than a revenue sharing agreement.

“The first contract was predicated on something called revenue thresholds. So, if they met revenue thresholds of, say, $400,000, then we would get x amount back from Standard Parking. Unfortunately, we never met those thresholds,” Department of Public Works Director Michael K. Stankovich explained at the time.

LAZ can offer better rates and 24-hour service because it already has an office inside the Merrimack Valley Regional Transit Authority (MVRTA) garage, said Todd Gilbert, LAZ general manager.

The Haverhill City Council meets at 7 p.m., Tuesday, in Theodore A. Pelosi Jr. Council Chambers at Haverhill City Hall.

5 thoughts on “Downtown Parking Receipts to Pay Vendor, DPW Expenses

  1. The city INVESTED taxpayer money to buy a Chevy Sonic…a $16,000.00 vehicle.
    The city also INVESTED funds to hire employees to drive that vehicle downtown as traffic enforcement.
    The sole purpose of those financial decisions by mayor Taxman was to provide a Return On Investment to the city.
    The word is that the number of tickets written to people downtown is off the charts. It needs to be reported how much those tyrannical investments are bringing into the city. Most importantly…WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH THAT MONEY??

  2. If the City is so poor that it can’t afford to clean sidewalks and parking lots, etc., without raiding parking receipts, how did we afford the clean-up before paid parking came along? Aren’t these expenses already built into the City budget?

    AND, if we are so strapped for money, why in the world are we granting salary increases to everyone? Are we not too poor for those expenditures also? And how are we doing with the catch-up and payment of unfunded pension and health-care liabilities?

    • EXACTLY!!!!!
      It’s just a ploy by the mayor taxman to DOUBLE DIP at taxpayers expense and then move that monies already paid for out of the city budget to some other area of his failing administration.