New Rochelle City Officials and the Business Improvement District Kicking

Written By: Talk of the Sound News

In the February 28, 2013 issue of the Westchester Guardian

At their February 12 meeting the New Rochelle City Council discussed a memo from City Manager Chuck Strome about a proposed downtown parking study. This memo to Council dated February 1, 2013 stated that the new restaurants opening in the downtown have caused some additional parking issues in that area. Solutions offered were adding public and private parking facilities and changing the valet parking programs presently used by restaurants in the downtown. He asked City Council members to approve part of the $10,000 needed for a study that would be conducted by Tim Haahs and Associates who had previously done work for the City. The memo stated he had been working with Ralph Di Bart, executive director of the BID who had made this recommendation. Councilman Ivar Hyden asked why when Avalon II’s Top of the Rock has an event at night that he does not see any parking vouchers on the cars in the library lot. Does this suggest these automobiles are not being ticketed?
Previous to this City Council meeting on January 25, Ralph Di Bart had sent a memo to BID members (including Chuck Strome) saying that he had been meeting with restaurant owners about the major problems in the Division/Memorial/Main/Huguenot Streets area which included parking because restaurants are competing for the “limited parking” available. Further he felt the lack of valet parking regulations needed to be addressed. He asked the BID for $10,000 for a study adding that Strome had already requested half of this amount from City Council. He called the problem “critical.’
This memo was especially difficult to understand because Ralph Di Bart was contacted by this writer on January 31 because of comments made by Marc Jerome, President of the BID and Vice President of Monroe College, at the New Rochelle Planning Board meeting on January 29 (see Westchester Guardian February 7, 2013 issue, “Approval of a New Dormitory for Monroe College in New Rochelle Ignores Parking Issues”). This dormitory is to be built on Main Street in downtown New Rochelle. Jerome is President of the BID and in this capacity had addressed the serious parking problem in downtown with the BID days before the Planning Board voted on January 29. Di Bart when specifically asked about the restaurants in downtown on January 31 stated to this writer there were no parking problems at night in the downtown.
The inconsistency in these reports about the parking in downtown is at the least, troubling, and at most, distressing. especially to residents living in or near the downtown area. Are uniform parking policies being enforced in downtown? In April 2010 the New Rochelle BID was the leading proponent in a move to extend metered parking in the downtown lots from 6 to 11 p.m. James O’Toole voted against the move but Strome and Councilman Al Tarantino abstained at that time. In 2011 through the efforts of Jerome and Di Bart, metered parking was extended in downtown to midnight. It was Di Bart who advocated that the formerly free downtown parking lots at night should start charging because he saw people walking from the library lot to New Roc in the evening. Apparently charging for parking in downtown lots has not resulted in anything positive for the City or the restaurants. Further, residents need consistency and honesty from both the City government and the BID.
Jerome did not acknowledge downtown parking problems when he applied to the Planning Board for approval of the Monroe College dormitory. Yet as BID Board chairman he had already approved an “emergency” downtown parking study. What are the residents of the City supposed to conclude after witnessing these actions?