PRINCETON: Boro Merchants mull parking strategy

By Lauren Otis, Staff Writer
   The president of the Borough Merchants for Princeton said that despite nearly universal opposition by business owners to expanding metered parking hours downtown, continued vocal criticism of the recent decision by Princeton Borough Council was counterproductive.
   ”I don’t think there are many of us, there may be a few, who think the parking decision was a good one. Most of us don’t,” said Kathie Morolda, owner of Cranbury Station Gallery at 28 Palmer Square East and president of the Borough Merchants association.
   But continuing “the negativity” will not help, Ms. Morolda said at the outset of the downtown merchant organization’s monthly meeting Tuesday morning. “I think we really do all need to sit down together and come up with a positive strategy,” she said.
   On April 7, Borough Council voted to expand metered hours for downtown parking from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and on Sunday replace free street parking and 25-cent-per-hour garage parking with regular daily rates. The changes were considered in order to raise revenue for the borough as it attempts to produce a fiscal year 2009 budget that will not increase property taxes.
   The parking policy was adopted on April 7 in a split vote, with council members Roger Martindell, Kevin Wilkes and Barbara Trelstad voting for it, and Andrew Koontz and David Goldfarb voting against it. Councilwoman Margaret Karcher was absent from the meeting.
   In an interview following the borough merchants meeting — which featured a presentation on how businesses could capitalize on Princeton University’s “12,000 individual consumers” by Kristin Appelget, the university’s director of community and regional affairs — Ms. Morolda said that since the Borough Council vote, there had been informal meetings of merchants at which possible actions they could take in recourse to the parking policy change were debated.
   Ms. Morolda said she had been to only one such meeting, but emphasized that at the meetings and in public comments merchants should be constructive. “It’s not going to help any of us if the whole town is screaming at each other,” she said.
   She said merchants should contemplate positive actions they can take, such as collectively chipping in to hire a public relations firm to improve the public’s impression of downtown Princeton.
   ”We are more concerned about the message it is going to send to the community, that Princeton is an unfriendly place,” Ms. Morolda said of the expanded paid-parking decision.
   Merchants needed to find out whether, with paid parking on Sundays, Princeton was now an anomaly or whether other municipalities in the state also charged for Sunday parking, “before we start screaming,” Ms. Morolda said.
   Ms. Morolda said the Borough Merchants association would likely hold its next meeting in May on the subject, which would allow enough time to obtain accurate information and assess options. “By then we’ll know where we stand,” she said.
   ”I think it is important that we all stay positive,” Ms. Morolda said. “I think we will all get through this.”
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