Gaffney Questions More Parking Meters for Cape May

CAPE MAY – City Council introduced three ordinances to create a number of new parking spaces by reconfiguring parking on sections of Beach Avenue from parallel spaces to back-in angle parking and installing meters on spaces that were formally non-metered in other portions of the city. In the process council received a tongue-lashing from William “Jerry” Gaffney, a former councilman, mayor and likely candidate in the May election.
At a Feb. 17 meeting, he asked council to table the ordinances. Gaffney said he strongly objected to the ordinances which he described as “not in the best interest of this community.”
He said he believed parking meters were designed to control parking in congested areas and business areas. Gaffney complained the ordinances would place meters along residential streets and on Beach Drive all the way to Poverty Beach in the east end of town.
“This will have a terrible effect on tourism,” he said.
Gaffney said a tourist that rents an apartment or house each summer five blocks from the beach, buys beach tags and normally parks free near Poverty Beach, would have to feed a meter to park and face a $32 ticket if the meter runs out.
“If that doesn’t destroy or discourage tourism, I don’t know what will,” said Gaffney.
He said the city was looking to gain revenue in an improper way.
“These ordinances are basically lame duck legislation,” said Gaffney. “Three of you are not running for reelection.”
He said three new council members along with two remaining members would be faced with all the problems the new meter placement would create. Gaffney suggested the ordinances be placed on the shelf until a new council was seated in July.
“I don’t want this city to be known as an historic landmark city with more parking meters per square foot than any other National Historic Landmark city,” he said.
Attorney Sanford Schmidt, who said he was representing several homeowners in east Cape May, said there was a “groundswell against these ordinances.”
Sanford said he would return for the public hearing on March 16.
Mayor Edward J. Mahaney Jr. said opposition to the meter ordinances was coming from one particular neighborhood, based on a letter most likely from one of Schmidt’s clients, which contained “numerous misunderstandings of this information.”
He asked Schmidt contact the city so council understood his position and the city understood his clients’ position. The mayor said additional revenue for the city from parking as proposed in the ordinances amounted to about $150,000.
The emphasis for back-in angle parking was in the west end of town by the cove where Beach Avenue is very wide, said Mahaney.
“Never did I think we would find 300 additional parking spaces on the beachfront in Cape May,” said Deputy Mayor Niels Favre. “People are quite willing to pay for those parking spaces when they are right there on the beachfront.”
He said he would like to hear the pros and cons of installing meters in other areas. Favre said he endorsed angle parking which was also endorsed by the Cape May Police Department.
Gaffney suggested council contact Gov. Chris Christie and state legislators to allow room tax to be applied to house and condominium rentals rather than just hotel/motel rooms and bed and breakfast inn accommodations as a new source of revenue.
The proposed ordinances would create back-in angle parking on Beach Avenue from Broadway to Grant Street and Decatur Street to Gurney Street and east to Howard Street once a new convention hall is constructed, and Beach Avenue from Madison Avenue to Wilmington Avenue.
Side street metered 10-hour parking from May 1 to Oct. 31 is proposed for sections of Gurney Street, Heritage Lane, Howard, Queen and Jefferson streets, Philadelphia, Reading, Trenton, Windsor and Wilmington avenues. Eight hour parking from June 1 to Sept. 1 is proposed for sections of Broadway, First, Mt. Vernon, Patterson, Second, Madison, Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Brooklyn avenues, all near Beach Avenue.