Rehoboth cashes in on parking
As part of last year’s annual review of the city’s parking, Rehoboth Beach officials decided to make all meters $3 an hour. The change has paid dividends.
The city’s budget runs April 1 to March 31, and this year’s budget included $5.6 million in anticipated meter and permit parking revenue – $4.65 million from meters; $950,000 from permits.
According to an end-of-summer report, the city ended up making about $7.5 million – about $6.3 million from meters; $1.2 million from permits.
“That’s pretty good,” said June Embert, parking department supervisor, during a commissioner meeting Oct. 21.
In addition to the change in meters, the city simplified the season too – from the Friday before Memorial Day through the second Sunday after Labor Day, to May 15 through Sept. 15.
Embert said the dates were much easier to remember and there wasn’t a big rush to issue permits the Friday before. There were still people coming in, but there wasn't a big line out the door, she said.
It wasn’t mentioned during the report, but in an email Oct. 26, Interim City Manager Evan Miller said the city has also collected roughly $800,000 in meter and permit fines to date. Last year, he said, it was approximately $840,000.
In other departments, Police Chief Keith Banks and Beach Patrol Capt. Jeff Giles reported busy, but generally safe and productive seasons.
Banks said between May 27 and Sept. 5, there was an 8% increase in emergency dispatches.
President Joe Biden visited his North Shores home six times this year for a total of 21 days, which translates to 315 person hours and 42 shifts at a cost of over $27,000, said Banks. The city is being reimbursed, he said. The report was given the afternoon Biden arrived Oct. 21 for his seventh visit this year, so all those numbers have increased.
There have also been 48 special events or construction work that required an additional 114 work shifts totaling 453 hours of coverage, said Banks.
Giles said there were 94 saves this summer, 59 assists, 318 missing or lost children, 277 wheelchair requests, 3,141 canopy takedowns and 121 EMT calls.
The overarching issue from both men was related to finding nearby affordable housing for police cadets and lifeguards.
Banks said there’s trouble finding season-long rentals because most renters are now doing annual or weekly.
“It’s what they keep reporting back to us over and over,” said Banks, saying he had a group of four cadets spend $26,000 to live for the summer in the Long Neck area. “The reality is if something doesn’t change, the program is just going to fade away. We can’t keep it up no matter what we put the hourly wages at.”
It’s really hard to get lifeguards down here with a place to rent and stay, said Giles.
Banks said another issue with finding cadets is that there are fewer people who want to become police officers. No matter how much advertising was done, the department couldn’t fill the full roster of summer help, he said.
