News

By Mary Thurwachter

    Relief is coming for those frustrated with getting the parking kiosks to work efficiently at the Lantana Municipal Beach. The Town Council at its Aug. 14 meeting agreed to spend $18,871 for three new kiosks.
    “The ones we have aren’t working to our liking,” Mayor Dave Stewart said. “We’ve been testing new ones and there have not been any issues.”
    Town Manager Deborah Manzo said the two parking kiosks at the beach were becoming unmanageable because of  communication issues between them.
    “As a result, two major problems developed,” Manzo said. “Long communication time between kiosks caused timeouts to cancel the transaction, which ultimately resulted in the Police Department having to download kiosk summaries to determine who had or had not paid, and thereby reducing Police Department efficiency.”
    Having kiosks that can communicate with each other provides for payment convenience — you can use any of the three kiosks no matter where your car is parked. It’s also useful for police when determining which cars need to be ticketed.
    Town officials like two pilot kiosks from IPS Group Inc. that are undergoing testing.
    The two existing kiosks, purchased four years ago, will be moved to Sportsman’s Park and Lyman Kayak Park. Since the two will be standalone kiosks, communication and enforcement problems are unlikely to develop, Manzo said.
    The three new beach kiosks come with 24-hour technical support, two coin boxes per machine, a warranty and a cellphone app.
    In other news, the council agreed to waive the parking requirement for wheel stops for the commercial section of Water Tower Commons, the 72-acre retail and residential project at the old A.G. Holley State Hospital site.
    Developers will be permitted to eliminate 819 of the 1,177 wheel stops in the original design. Planners said the stops were tripping hazards for people who walk across the parking lot.
    The town also learned that the first known store for the project, a Walmart Neighborhood Market, is applying for a building permit and expects to begin construction in January.