By Cynthia Koons
The installation of parking meters on Bell Boulevard, a plan promoted by doctors who want to keep spaces open throughout the day for their businesses, was being stalled by the Department of Transportation as of Tuesday.
After residents spoke out against the meters at the Community Board 7 meeting Monday night, DOT spokesman Tom Cocola said the poles and parking signs were coming down pending further evaluation of the situation.
The parking meter poles were being placed in front of medical offices on Bell Boulevard near 24th Avenue across from the Bay Terrace Shopping Center as of last Thursday.
Residents aired their frustrations at the CB 7 meeting Monday night, saying the parking meters will complicate their lives.
“We’d like to suggest the sidewalk be reduced and angled parking permitted,” Phil Konigsberg, of the Bay Terrace Community Alliance, said at the meeting.
“The DOT intends on putting parking meters in our residential area,” Konigsberg said. “They’re doing this at the request of one medical professional. (The doctors) don’t want to admit that they created their own problem (with) their reckless expansion into the community.”
Konigsberg was joined by his neighbors, who have collected 200 signatures on a petition in protest of the meters and were planning a protest to oppose the meters on Friday.
They held up signs at the CB 7 meeting that read “No Meters in Bay Terrace” on a mock parking sign with a meter crossed out in protest.
“We are tax-paying citizens, middle class members of the community,” Bay County co-op resident Helaine Soller said. “How can you eat dinner while having to feed a parking meter?”
The residents said they were angered the doctors turned down an opportunity to pay for a valet service offered by Cord Meyer Development Co., which owns a parking deck at the Bay Terrace Shopping Center across the street.
No doctors in the area were available for comment when the DOT announced the poles were being removed.
“Our whole community is so needy for basic parking,” Soller said.
“This is imposed by selfishness and people who are not residents,” she said. “We are part of their patient population and I think they will lose some customers.”
Reach reporter Cynthia Koons by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 141.
