WhiteRockReporter.com

I responce to meter madness, There's no doubt White Rock needs to revise their rates. They seem to have made up these rates according to how the city would like people to know that they are not welcome here after a certain time. Lets face it, The city would rather have no business at night then have to be responsible for a thriving beachfront... or up town for that mater. And there are lots of reasons for that. Like noise and well, people having a good time. But mostly noise. I often wonder why we say we want people coming to our town and we want our businesses to be successful....... but then we put in a bunch of by-laws and city shuts down after 6pm. Do the same people who live here that complain about our parking rates, complain about the noisy traffic???

I would'nt dare compare rates to vancouver, as you may be putting your foot way down your mouth. Vancouver rates are insane so don't even go there.

As a citizen here all my life, I am not interested in paying a fee at all for any time I park and I believe that a proof of address is all I should have to present. If your a White Rock citizen, why are you in favor of paying any fee at all?

On the other hand maby there should be no cars at all on Marine Drive. Maby it should be a huge coblestone sidewalk from Maple to Oxford. and you could still get emergency traffic through. ONE BIG SIDE WALK!!!!!!

Here's an email I received from councilor, Matt Todd of October 24th, 2007 responding to my email.

Which street in Vancouver were you visiting?

Vancouver has streets that cost both less and more for parking.

Think back to the reason why pay parking was introduced in the first place.

The idea was create a disincentive for partying kids from hanging out. It worked. We still have problems with vandalism on the beach.

The worry is that noise and the mindless destruction would get worse without pay parking discouraging them from lingering longer.

If someone has an idea for preventing this disturbance and damage, besides becoming a police state with cops standing guard on every corner, then I'd really like to hear it.

Matt Todd
Councillor, City of White Rock
http://www.MattTodd.ca/wordpress/ 24th Oct.2007, 02.45

Johan's remark and comment to Mr. Todd's:

Thank you to visitors to White Rock paying parking.

You may not know it, but the www.WhiteRockReporter.com is happy to let you know you are doing White Rock and the community a favour by contributing to 'actions for crime prevention and efforts to maintain law and order amongst the violent elements in youth! Read what Mr. Todd writes in our columns.

Surprised?

I thought it was our friends in 'red serge' the RCMP officers to figure that one out. RCMP do a great job which cannot be said about the Courts and many of the judges employed in the 'system'.

I agree, it's the conflict between the cost of parking and its impact on White Rock businesses at the beach, that drive customers and guests away from the waterfront and its establishments.

It's real simple, I no longer meet business associates for lunch at any of the beach restaurants. When there are two of us in my lunch meeting by the time we both add $4 each for parking that's $8. If there happens to be four of us meeting and we all have our own vehicles with us, note parking cost; it's $16.

And with an average of one lunch a week, that's an extra $32-$64 a month or $384 or $768 a year.

If the parking was reasonably priced, I wouldn't mind paying, however it's not fairly priced and a rip off overall.

My apologies to the beach-based restaurants, but we'll be enjoying our lunches elsewhere.

And paying for parking until 2:00am is so ridiculous it's a wonder anybody visits the beach at all.

James