Advisory board: Higher parking rates can help fix county’s fiscal woes

By Jennifer Deseo | Jan 12, 2010

Montgomery County’s operating budget is in a deep, tar-filled pit, but Silver Spring’s citizens advisory board has an idea or two about how to fix that.

Photo: Members of the citizens advisory board at Monday nights meeting in Long Branch. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.

Photo: Members of the citizens advisory board at Monday night's meeting in Long Branch. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.

At its monthly meeting Monday night in Long Branch, board members proposed higher parking fees and a greater reliance on free labor to cover some of the projected $608 million shortfall in the fiscal year 2011 operating budget.

Board member Constance Wynn, of South Four Corners, said she’d be willing to pay $1.50 per hour to park in downtown Silver Spring’s public garages. That rate represents a 100 percent increase from the current $0.75 short-term hourly rate. Debbie Linn, a board member from the Sligo-Branville area, said she didn’t want to pay that much but was willing to take a $1 hourly rate.

Either way, it’s a problem, board member “Southside” Evan Glass, of South Silver Spring, and economic-development guru Mel Tull argued. According to them, the Town Square and Wayne Avenue public garages next to the Downtown Silver Spring shopping center have a 20-year agreement with the county to waive parking fees after 6:00 p.m. weekdays and all day on weekends. (more…)

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County budget bites into downtown dining guide

By Jennifer Deseo | Dec 1, 2008

While most Silver Springers were carving Thanksgiving turkeys, the county council was carving what’s left of this fiscal year’s operating budget. Two days before the holiday, the council approved $33 million in cuts, $9 million less than what MoCo exec Ike Leggett recommended.

Most of the cuts run across the board and put off backfilling long-vacant county jobs. Other cost-saving measures hit closer to home:

  • Downtown Silver Spring’s dining guide. Expect fewer copies of the annual restaurant guide to show up, now that $4,300 has been lopped off its budget.
  • Montgomery College’s Campus Connector. The college hoped to give students a free lift between its Takoma Park/Silver Spring and Rockville campuses. But when bids overshot the expected $280,000 budget, the college and county council agreed to nix the idea.
  • The police academy’s class of 2009. Fifteen recruits will earn their badges in January, five fewer than previously planned. That allows the county to save $172,000, according to the council and MoCo exec Ike Leggett.
  • Reading material for public libraries. Almost $790,000 was cut from library stacks, which county council members chose over rolling back service hours or cutting staff. However, top librarian Parker Hamilton said in November that online and electronic reading material could make up for fewer books.

The cuts to this year’s budget don’t even touch the $500 million gap in next fiscal year’s rolls.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Jeff Keen.

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