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Never forget government's most fundamental role -- finding ways to separate you from the money in your wallet.
Consider action recently from Wheeling City Council. What appeared at first to be a more visitor-friendly approach downtown with the removal of parking meters -- an issue leaders at the Wheeling Area Chamber of Commerce have advocated the city do for years -- has now turned into a blatant push to raise city revenue.
With the aid of two new electric vehicles and technology that digitally tracks where vehicles are parked and for how long, the city's two-hour parking measure itself already is bringing in new revenue, as city parking enforcement officials issued their first overtime parking tickets last week. Those are at $10 each incident, with an overtime ticket at $20. That's a higher initial fine than many cities in our region.
What also is somewhat concerning is an amendment approved last week by council that prohibits motorists already parked downtown from moving their vehicle to another space within the same parking zone in an attempt to extend free parking privileges.
Let's be clear: This is not a call for employees to fill up all the spots on Main or Market streets downtown without consequence. That's unacceptable. But increased fines, now coupled with a measure that penalizes folks for actually moving their cars to another spot downtown before being ticketed, seems excessive. It's also an excuse for the city to attempt to push more people into the underutilized parking garages around town.
Since there are no meters, and no pay-to-park system such as is found in other cities, the burden will fall directly on the parking public to ensure the time limit is not exceeded. It's unclear why, with apps such as ParkMobile already in use in town, that option was not considered. Instead, taxpayers purchased two electric vehicles and an AI-based license plate reader while promising free and easier parking as a way, it appears, simply to fill city coffers.