Jean Mikle

@jeanmikle

Parking fees are slated to rise in downtown Toms River on Oct. 1 for the first time in 23 years.

An Ocean County Library employee is urging people to boycott downtown meters in protest against the fee increase.

TOMS RIVER -- A hefty increase in downtown parking fees planned to take effect on Oct. 1 is being panned by some county employees and business owners, who say it will become prohibitively expensive to park near the Ocean County Courthouse and library.

Short-term parking fees have not risen in the downtown since 1993, but a new "progressive" parking system will make it much more expensive for people to park in the area for more than two hours at a time.

On the popular third level of the garage behind town hall, parking rates will rise from 25 to 75 cents an hour, but fees there will be charged from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., ending one hour earlier than they do now.

TAX WATCH: Toms River amends budget, cuts tax increase

The fee increase was approved earlier this year by the Toms River Parking Authority's Board of Commissioners, and then supported unanimously in a July vote by the Township Council.

Library employees and other parking patrons are perhaps most upset by the progressive parking system, which will raise fees in sought-after downtown spots by 50 cents an hour after the first two hours.

Fees start at 50 cents an hour for the first two hours, and rise to $3.50 an hour by the eighth hour. Today, it costs a flat 25 cents an hour to park in these spots.

On Allen Street, for example, it previously cost $2 for an employee of the library or other local business to park at a meter for eight hours. Under the new parking fee structure, it will cost $14.50 to park for the same period of time — an increase of 625 percent.

PLANNING: 10 issues raised at Toms River master plan hearings

"This is preposterous and really a smack in the face to all of us who work downtown, as well as residents of Toms River," Sherri Taliercio, a township resident who works at the Washington Street library, wrote to The Asbury Park Press.

Caroll Murray, who also works at the library, has started an online petition calling on people to boycott downtown Toms River's paid spots in an effort to get the Toms River Parking Authority — and the Township Council — to reconsider the price increase.

Murray attended the Township Council meeting on Sept. 6 to reiterate her opposition to the parking increase. She said the parking increase would discourage people from coming to the township's downtown, which has struggled to lure businesses and customers for years.

"Believe it or not, you have a say in whether this decision to raise fees is successful! Hit them where it hurts — right in the wallet!" reads Murray's petition on Change.org. The petition has garnered 244 signatures, and dozens of comments complaining about the sometimes-difficult parking situation in the township's downtown.

REDEVELOPMENT: Downtown Toms River: Coming back up?

Among them is a comment from Amanda Raulerson, one of the owners of Mandoli's Bakery on Washington Street, who says the rise in parking fees will drive away customers.

"We have customers avoid coming in because of parking and now a price increase," Raulerson wrote. "The parking authority will kill everything the good people of downtown have worked so hard to accomplish."

But Michael Sutton, who chairs the parking authority's Board of Commissioners, said the increase is needed to help the authority pay for new parking meters, and to encourage turnover of spaces in the downtown.

The authority plans to spend about $250,000 to replace its existing parking meters and older machines with new machines that will accept debit and credit cards. Those meters have already been installed at the authority's parking lots, and should be in place by Oct. 1 at metered street spaces, he said.

Sutton said the authority and the Township Council paid for a 2014 parking study that recommended the authority maintain better fiscal controls to account for and allocate revenues from parking meters.

That was also a recommendation in the authority's 2015 audit, which noted that the old meters make it impossible for the authority to reconcile revenues that were actually earned with what is deposited in the bank.

The new meters will enable the authority to do that, Sutton said.

"When we do an audit, we have to be able to tell exactly when the meter was used and how much was in the meter," he said.

The progressive rates will also discourage people form parking in prime downtown spots for long periods, Sutton said.

"We need to move people around for the downtown businesses," Sutton said. "You have to look at the point of view, that the parking downtown on the street is for the customer. It's for the person that's going into the courthouse to do whatever. It's for the person who is going to the businesses."

WATCH: Parking Authority employee stole from ATMs to gamble

Sutton said the Parking Authority consulted with the Toms River Business Improvement District before moving forward with the fee increase. He said county employees can park for free in the county garage on Hooper Avenue.

Taliercio said that the county garage is several blocks away from the library and downtown businesses, and said it is often crowded, and can feel unsafe at night.

Parking is often at a premium during the day in Toms River's compact downtown, as Ocean County employees, Toms River employees, and visitors to the county courthouse and library vie for limited spaces.

MORE TOMS RIVER NEWS: 3 ways redevelopment upsets Toms River

The Parking Authority is an independent township agency with its own budget and employees. It operates parking lots and the parking garage located behind town hall on Water Street.

All told, there are more than 1,200 parking spaces in the downtown, but 524 of them are located at the Park-n-Ride lot at the bus terminal off Highland Parkway.

The rest of the spaces include a hodge-podge of parking lots and metered spaces along downtown streets like Washington, Allen, Main, Robbins, Water and Hyers streets, as well as Court House Lane.

There is some free parking in the downtown. In addition to the county garage, there are free spaces available in the Irons Street lot, which can often become crowded, especially on Wednesdays, when the Toms River Farmer's Market takes place on Water Street. Some of the lots also only allow parking during limited hours.

MAYHEM: TR man tried to burn house with girlfriend inside

Free spaces are also available in the Sovereign Bank lot, located on Hyers Street, but only after 6 p.m. weekdays and 2 p.m. Saturdays.

Parking at all Toms River Parking Authority lots is free on Sundays and holidays.

The authority collected about $414,000 a year in parking fees for its downtown lots, metered parking and parking garage, and about $320,000 in commissions on bus tickets sold at the bus terminal, according to its 2015 budget.

The money is used to pay for equipment like parking meters, leases for some spaces in the downtown, and to pay the salaries of the authority's staff and benefits of the authority's staff.

The question of what to do about downtown parking has been raised before. A suggestion to eliminate meters in the downtown back in 1993 was abandoned after business owners complained that a meter-less downtown would lead to parking for hours in front of their stores, discouraging other customers.

Some business owners actually called for a meter-free downtown in 2014, when the township and parking authority undertook a study of parking conditions there. In the end, Sutton said, allowing greater turnover of spaces was deemed more important, and meters necessary.

Sutton said he is sympathetic to county employees and others visiting the downtown who want to park for many hours but said that if the meters were not there, employees would park in prime spots for eight hours or more.

"If we didn’t charge for parking and didn’t enforce for a week, it would be chaos, we’d have every employee parking there," Sutton said. "I understand what they are saying. I understand that they want to park as close as possible."

Jean Mikle: 732-643-4050, jmikle@gannettnj.com