LETTER: Misguided suggestions to change Rehoboth's parking   

After digesting the article about the Rehoboth Beach Parking Committee recommendations to resolve the parking dilemma it was apparent, at least to me, that the suggested changes to the current regulations were nothing more than skillful sleight of hand to disguise what it really was - another effort to bleed revenue from those who keep the town’s businesses going during peak season and impose more restrictions on them while doing nothing for parking itself.

Parking meters and permits are not about increasing turnover in Rehoboth. They are about revenue with parking/permit revenue being the largest-percentage revenue generator for the city’s budget year-on-year, and the recommendations being considered will not increase turnover or parking availability but will increase revenue.

First it calls for a 50 percent increase in the meter rate and couples it with extending the season from the Friday before Memorial Day weekend to May 1, and similarly extending the end of the season from the second Sunday after Labor Day to the end of September. This will do nothing to facilitate parking and have minimal impact, at best, on seasonal parking since the season really does not begin until Memorial Day weekend, and usually declines steadily in mid-August. It will, however, add another level of frustration to those who come for long weekends in early May or after Labor Day - many from areas north, south and west of Rehoboth - to dine, shop, stroll the Boardwalk or just sit on the beach and enjoy the ocean and patronize businesses.

Adding those 20-plus days is not about helping with parking during those times; it’s about raising money during off-peak times.
The suggestion that the meter and permit time frames be changed from 10 a.m. to midnight to 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. serves no useful purpose other than to reduce the cost of enforcement (saving revenue) by reducing the current 14-hour time to 12 hours and getting whatever parking fees it can squeeze out of visitors an hour earlier. Shortening the midnight end time is a good suggestion. It would be a positive step and recognize activity does drop off after 9 p.m. for most businesses, and may encourage some early diners to hang around and spend some money in town. The 9 a.m. start time has no positive aspects and could have significant negative impact on beach goers, particularly families with children, because the lifeguards do not take their stands until 10 a.m. Unless of course the city will increase the guards’ hours eight from the current seven; oh but wait, that may cost more. Forget it. Let’s just juggle the 30-minute slots.

It amazes me how Rehoboth continues to be blind to making things easier for the very element that a beach resort depends on - the visitors, seasonal residents and shoulder season visitors who produce the bulk of its financial resources. From dumping sewage effluent in the ocean to vacillating on dealing with the stormwater pollution along the close-in beach shoreline to now considering other ways to exasperate those who come to relax and enjoy the beach and its amenities.

Raising parking fees, extending hours and days to collect those fees only demonstrates stagnant thinking. As the parking consultant stated, “...perception is reality,” and the reality is that Rehoboth is a resort town and it does not have the space to meet its parking demand. That is not going to change. The seasonal visitors and renters are its life’s blood, and the suggested changes will only further validate that perception by treating those folks like fiscal blood donors. We can’t create more parking, but we can charge you more and offer you less, will that work for you?

Parking in Rehoboth during the “season” has always been problematic despite the glib assessment offered by the parking consultant - there are more visitors than available parking, and that, absent new areas for parking, will remain. But adding new fees and restrictive steps is not going to do anything to change that, and only add to the frustration of those who come during the season and beyond. Adding more fees to businesses will do the same. Some established businesses and other new businesses opened locations outside of town with free parking to avoid the parking nightmare and town taxes and fees, and have thrived.

More will emulate that strategy and the city will lose that revenue.

Hiking parking and related fees has been a “go to” solution for some time in Rehoboth, and it seems to be the same solution again. I once saw a poster with a definition of consulting and it said: “Consulting. If you are not part of the solution there’s good money to be made from prolonging the problem.” Seems to fit here.

Matt Maher
Lewes