Parking fees in D.C. likely to go up, as council backs away from longer meter hours

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/parking-fees-in-dc-likely-to-go-up-as-council-backs-away-from-longer-meter-hours/2015/11/03/682faa38-822b-11e5-9afb-0c971f713d0c_story.html

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The D.C. Council on Tuesday is poised to undo two last-minute and not-so-well-thought-out tax increases it imposed earlier this year. And it is replacing them with, well, another increase that was never debated publicly.

D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) on Monday proposed inching up fees for parking in metered spots from 50 cents for every 15 minutes, to 50 cents for every 13 minutes.

That might sound like the proverbial nickel and diming of big city government, but it is sending the cost of parking in the nation’s capital over a couple key thresholds: With convenience fees for anyone who does not carry around a few dozen quarters, it will push the cost of parking for two hours to more than $5.

For anyone who tries to park all day using the city’s Parkmobile smartphone app, street parking for eight hours will top $21. (Or if you pay in quarters, slightly less, $18.50 — or 74 quarters).

A parking ticket in D.C. for failing to feed the meter is $25.

[District officials decry disabled parking fraud, but have failed to fix it]

D.C. has faced frequent criticism from the AAA and others for using its parking and red-light camera revenue to help balance an ever-larger share of its budget.

With red-light camera revenue slumping, the council in the spring opted to extend parking meter fees in busy areas of the city from 10 p.m. to midnight. Mendelson said the council was informed about a month ago that doing so would be more complicated than expected and could ensnare parking meters in more residential areas that currently kick off at 6:30 p.m.

Mendelson said he had developed the alternative, to inch up the parking rates for almost all of the city’s 18,000 meters, in consultation with his council colleagues. Mendelson only made the plan public on Monday however, and since it is a substitute of the previous revenue measure, it does not technically require a public hearing.

The new, 10-quarter-per-hour parking rate could bring in an extra $10 million annually for the city, Mendelson said.

The chairman, however, said there is another tax that he is open to renegotiating publicly.

Mendelson said he would urge his council colleagues on Tuesday to strike a plan to begin targeting profits of D.C. businesses held in so-called “tax havens” like the Cayman Islands and other Caribbean and European nations.

To increase funding for homeless services and other initiatives in the spring, Mendelson surprised many colleagues by announcing a budget plan to follow Oregon and Montana into the rarely attempted effort to tax unreported profits of large corporations held overseas.

The city began the effort in 2011, but found it tricky without identifying certain countries as “tax havens.” The council in the spring labeled nearly 40 countries as frequent banking destinations for tax scofflaws and Mendelson said he has gotten an earful since then.

“As the person receiving all of this criticism,” he said, “I thought it would be good to sit down and reconsider.”

Several Caribbean countries have blasted Mendelson’s plan as unfairly labeling them. The plan would have raised almost $4 million in new tax revenue, the city estimated.