Middleburg’s Community Newspaper Volume 12 Issue 2
B E L O CA L BUY LOCAL
OP ITY AND SH R COMMUN SUPPORT OU
Printed using recycled fiber
Summer Soundtracks… What’s Yours?
Page 41
LOCALLY
June 25, 2015 ~ July 23, 2015
www.mbecc.com
Land Rover, Great Meadow Invitational Page 14
The Meters Are Back! Middleburg Town Councel Report
M
Dan Morrow
iddleburg’s month-long experiment with two-hour free parking ended Monday, June 15. Parking meters are back, sans their prominent white “two-hourfree-parking” bags, until Town Staff and Police Chief A.J. Panebianco can evaluate the results of the Town’s month-long “free parking” experiment . At this month’s June 11 regular meeting of Town Council Chief Panebianco delivered a preliminary review of his current sense of how the “free parking” trial had been received by those who park and those who depend on parkers. Feedback Feedback from business owners, Panebianco reported, was generally positive. “They liked the idea that parking was free” and several had noted, with some pleasure, that “people who tended to park their vehicles at the meters for the entire day were now starting to move them.” Negative feedback was relatively rare, he said. Some business people reported that visitors had told them that two hours “wasn’t really enough time to shop.” Some said they felt “rushed to move their cars,” Weekends were also problematic. When all the parking spaces are full, Panebianco noted, “people don’t want to move their cars,” …fearing that they won’t be able to find another space. The Numbers
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Request in homes by Thursday 6/25/15
PRST STD ECRWSS US POSTAGE PAID BURKE, VA PERMIT NO 029
B u si n e s s Di r e c tory : Pa g e 4 6 • Fr i en d s f or L i fe : Pa g e 4 2
Continued page 13
POSTAL CUSTOMER
Middleburg Hunt Ball
During the month-long trial Middleburg officers wrote fifty-nine “warning tickets” compared to an average of thirty-four “real” tickets per month when the spaces were metered. Some of the warnings, Panebianco noted pointedly, “were to the same individuals,” totaling no more than four or five repeat offenders. Part of the increase in the total number of tickets issued, Panebiaco speculated, was because his department no doubt devoted more time to parking enforcement during the test period. During the test, for example, officers marked tires twice a day with chalk, then returned after at least two hours had passed to warn violators. Given their normal police duties, Panebianco continued, Middlburg’s officers could not possibly continue to chalk and check tires in this way every day. But, should the Town decide to permanently adopt the two-hour-free-parking system, digital equipment was available to reduce the time required for appropriate enforcement