Palacios favors removing unused Garapan parking meters

Not one of the 57 parking meters that were installed along Beach Road and Garapan streets in the early 2000s have ever been used and Gov. Arnold I. Palacios believes they should be removed.

“It’s dysfunctional!” said Palacios during a press briefing last week.

If the parking meters are not functioning, they should be removed as they only serve to confused tourists and other nonresidents, who think they need to put money in the meters when they park in the area.

The Department of Public Works hired Maeda Corp. to install 27 parking meters along Hotel Street and Coral Avenue, while 30 were installed along Beach Road in Garapan.

Palacios said the issue with the parking meters is regulatory—nobody wants to own it and be responsible for it, whether the Department of Public Safety, Department of Public Works, or another agency.

“We bought this thing, we built it, we put it there, you run it. You’re responsible,” he said, but the issue has been going back and forth.

Palacios said he was in the Legislature when the parking meters were installed. “And that thing was not free. Nobody wanted to take ownership of who’s [going to] get it done,” he said.

The governor said that parking in Garapan is going to continue to be an issue so he is hoping that the new Zoning board will do more inspections of activities and enforcements of some of the laws and regulations to keep the place in order.