Colonial Parking reports June revenue uptick; committee hears staffing, enforcement and meter-removal updates

At a July meeting of the West Chester Borough Parking Committee, Colonial Parking reported stronger-than-last-year revenue for June and discussed staffing and enforcement issues.

Norman Ortiz, regional representative for Colonial Parking, said "the garages in June did fairly well for the month of June. The actuals for the month were $250,000 and $250,208 for the month. Comparing that to last year, that's a difference of $21,000." He also reported year-to-date garage revenue of $1,321,000 and a year-to-date variance of about $43,000 compared with last year. Ortiz said operating expenses for June were about $51,000 and that weekend staffing shortages produced overtime; Colonial expects at least one new hire in July.

Ortiz provided utilization figures: he reported about 2,267 transient tickets per day at one garage and 4,230 transient tickets per day across both garages, compared with about 3,521 total transient tickets per day last year. He said Colonial began stricter enforcement of nighttime monthly-parker restrictions in May and started enforcing daytime-hour restrictions for daytime monthly parkers in July. "Out of that group of daytime parkers, we did have 30 daytime parkers that ended up transitioning and purchasing 24‑7 monthly contracts," Ortiz said, adding that most recent compliance issues have been on the exit side.

Parking staff updated the committee on equipment and maintenance. The committee packet included a purchase order for J and J Outdoor Services for $14,369.50 to power-wash the garages; staff said that was the lowest of three quotes. The committee also approved purchase of new handheld enforcement devices and is inventorying old meters that have been taken offline. Staff said the removed meters are being recorded by serial number, will be stored and then offered for sale (staff said they planned to post them on Municibid and contact nearby municipalities).

Director-level staff reminded motorists about the FlowBird parking app and suggested regularly closing and reopening the app to avoid user errors. Financial figures reported by staff included ticket revenue of $81,035 for June, posting revenue of $4,913.50, and permanent-revenue items (monthly permits) beginning to ramp up; some line-item totals in the verbal report were not specified precisely in the transcript.

The committee did not record a separate formal vote on operational items beyond routine approvals; the group discussed staffing, timing for meter removals (staff estimated completion by July but said it was weather- and staffing-dependent) and next steps for selling retired meters.