The newly reconstituted Derby Parking Authority met for the second time Tuesday (Oct. 21) but its members said they’re still months away from coming up for a game plan regarding what to do with the decrepit downtown parking garage.
Mayor Anita Dugatto appointed four new members to the authority last month to replace four members of the authority who had resigned en masse in August because the Board of Aldermen did not schedule a multi-million dollar referendum on repairs needed at the 300-space garage on Thompson Place.
The garage is in severe disrepair, and Aldermen closed the building temporarily in February out of safety concerns, miffing former members of the parking authority who had been lobbying city officials to schedule a referendum for money to repair or rebuild it.
The mayor told Aldermen last month that her new appointees — Anthony Dulla, Susan Baum, Cheryl Pereiras, and Bill Boland — “are on fire with being creative.”
But during a special meeting Tuesday that lasted about 20 minutes, the quartet of newcomers — and Richard Bartholomew, the only member of the authority not to resign in August — said they’re still waiting for information they need to decide what to do with the parking garage.
A lot of that information would presumably come from Leo Moscato Jr., the authority’s executive director.
But Moscato couldn’t attend Tuesday’s meeting, members said, because of a conflict.
The authority did have its regular meeting this month, on Oct. 8, but minutes of whatever transpired at it hadn’t been filed by Tuesday, four days later than required by the Freedom of Information Act.
What little information the members do have is incomplete, they indicated Tuesday.
“The financial report he gave us last week didn’t have a beginning balance on it,” Baum said during the meeting. “So I don’t even know what the authority has in their bank account.”
Dulla, who was unanimously elected chairman of the authority Tuesday, said that by the authority’s next meeting — scheduled for Nov. 12 — members hope to have:
- Copies of engineering reports prepared regarding the garage
- Cost estimates to repair, demolish, and/or rebuild the garage
- A timeline of when the mayor and Aldermen want them to make a decision regarding the garage, and
- More specifics regarding the authority’s finances.
“Obviously we need some information, still, before we can start to work on this,” he said.
For example, Dulla said he wants to know more about what revenue the authority was devoting, if any, to repairs and replacing the garage.
If the authority charges, say, 20 cents to park for a half-hour, why not make it 25 cents and set aside the difference in a repair/replacement fund?
That way, perhaps the authority in future years could finance upgrades to its facilities on its own, rather than going hat-in-hand to taxpayers asking them to OK borrowing millions of dollars at a referendum.
(Dulla was using hypothetical numbers to illustrate a point. For parking rates in Derby, click here.)
Dulla said after Tuesday’s meeting that the authority is “establishing a base line” before committing itself to any specific course of action regarding the garage.
Mayor Anita Dugatto said the authority’s new members are still “getting their feet wet.”
She said she doesn’t have a specific course of action in mind she wants the authority to pursue regarding what to do with the parking garage, or a timeline for them to make a decision, but looked forward to their monthly updates at Aldermen’s meetings.
“It’s all premature right now,” Dugatto said. “The new board has to come up to speed. They’re trying to get themselves organized.”
Audio of Tuesday’s meeting is embedded below.
