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City Having Second Thoughts Over Hiring of Standard Parking

A Standard Parking vehicle patrols The Square in Oxford / Photo By HottyToddy.com

Mayor, aldermen looking at plan for long-term solution by next January

The city of Oxford is having second thoughts over its decision to hire Standard Parking last year.

While city officials say the company has done its job as far as clearing up parking on the square is concerned, they appear to have miscalculated the amount of revenue they were supposed to bring in.

Since its hiring late last year, the company has brought in a little over $1,000 in revenue, with the total expenses for the year tallying $200,000.

“We want to give them credit for opening up parking,” Mayor Pat Patterson said in an interview on Thursday. “They’ve provided the capacity, but they vastly overestimated the amount of revenue that they were going to generate.”

Patterson said that while Standard Parking’s contract is for a year, it was also subject to termination after 30 days.

Attempts to contact Standard Parking for a response have gone unanswered.

“They’ve been successful in moving people, and a lot of employees now realize that they could get a ticket, so they started going to free parking,” Patterson added.“I think they underestimated the amount of success they were going to have.”

Patterson believes that some of the difference is coming from the first ticket issued being a warning, and those tickets make up a majority of the tickets that are actually given.

“Eighty percent of the tickets are free,” said Patterson. “I think they underestimated the impact of that on revenue.”

While the current revenue for parking is looking grim, Patterson believes that the city will be able to come up with a resolution.

“We’re going to try and have a plan in place by January 1st for a long-term solution, including a parking garage location, design, and timetable for completion,” he said.

“We’re going to have to keep some version of parking enforcement, but we’re not going to go back to chalking tires.

We’re going to revamp our ticketing, and see where that takes us.” –– Jared Senseman, senior journalism major, Meek School of Journalism and New Media

Email Jared Senseman at jrsensem@gmail.com

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