A meter parking enforcement hours sign is seen here on Main Street in Lake Placid on Sunday morning. (Enterprise photo — Sydney Emerson)

LAKE PLACID — Parking enforcement hours were officially extended in Lake Placid on Monday. Residents and workers will also now enjoy some new parking perks along Main Street, courtesy of a slate of parking system changes announced by the village.

The Lake Placid Village Board of Trustees voted unanimously Monday to extend parking enforcement hours from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Monday through Saturday and 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Sunday. The hours will take effect as soon as the state confirms its receipt of the amendment to local parking laws. Village Trustee Marc Galvin was absent from the meeting due to a family matter, but the board said Galvin approved of the enforcement changes and would’ve voted for them if he was present.

Village Mayor Art Devlin also announced several parking permit changes based on feedback the board received during its public hearing regarding the parking enforcement hour changes earlier this month.

The resident parking pass — free for all people who own property or are registered to vote in Lake Placid — will now be valid from 6 to 8 p.m. in addition to its original hours of 8 to 11 a.m. At the board’s July 1 hearing, North Elba resident Ellen Collins suggested the board implement that change to “give the people with our (resident parking passes) a break.”

The pass, also colloquially referred to as the “blue pass,” allows pass holders to park in metered spaces on Main Street at no charge. It’s valid for two years and is administered through the North Elba town clerk’s office. This means that, for North Elba and Lake Placid residents who have the free parking pass, they’ll only have to feed the meter if they park on Main Street between 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. Around 800 resident parking passes have been distributed to date, according to village Trustee Jackie Kelly.

The village will also create additional annual permit parking spaces along Parkside Drive near the Lake Placid Toboggan Chute and on Mirror Lake Drive near the High Peaks Resort. The $200 annual permit is administered by the Lake Placid Police Department and is only available to Main Street employees and residents. It allows permit holders to park in designated spots around Main Street that visitors are barred from.

At the board’s July 1 public hearing, Main Street employees said there weren’t enough permit spots to go around. Police Chief Chuck Dobson later confirmed that the department’s last parking audit in 2023 counted 116 permit parking spots; the department had sold 202 annual permits as of July 2.

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15 minutes of lane

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Free 15-minute parking is available now through the Flowbird meters for people who need to run quick errands on Main Street. To get the free 15 minutes, people currently still need to go to the meter and punch in their license plate number, after which, they’ll be prompted to print a free 15-minute ticket or insert their credit card to pay for a longer parking period. This feature currently does not work correctly on the Flowbird app, where it will only tack the free 15 minutes on to a paid hour of parking, but village officials said they’re working with Flowbird to fix this issue.

Devlin said that there may be more parking adjustments in the future as the village board continues to try to make parking on Main Street a more positive situation.

“This is not a one-and-done. It’s a work in progress,” he said. “Nobody is going to be satisfying everybody, but this is the direction we feel the board wants to go in.”

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Sign of the times

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Though the board only passed the new parking enforcement hours on Monday, signs on Main Street near the meters have read “Meter parking, pay here 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.” for almost two years.

Dobson told the Enterprise on Sunday that the signs were installed recently by Flowbird meter technicians who came to work on the machines. At Monday’s meeting, Devlin clarified that the signs were actually part of Lake Placid’s 2021-22 Main Street overhaul.

“When the Main Street was done, this was talked about — extending. And somewhere, (the changes) slipped through the cracks. Because the signs were part of the Main Street and they could order them, they did, and then (the changes) never got put in place,” Devlin said. “With COVID, we had … very limited parking enforcement, and a lot of these things didn’t come to light and they slipped through the cracks.”

The signs were likely installed around September 2022, Village Treasurer Mindy Goddeau added — close to the end of the project.

“I will take full blame,” Devlin said. “I’m the mayor; the buck stops here. But, now that we finally have full-time enforcement and we’re finding these problems, it’s one of our top topics here, addressing that.”

Devlin was elected mayor in 2021 and was sworn in on the first day of the Main Street overhaul. He previously served as a village trustee from 2009 to 2021.

Goddeau said at Monday’s meeting that, though the signage was incorrect, the machines wouldn’t have accepted payment after 6 p.m. until their hours were recently changed. On Tuesday, she clarified that the machines displayed a message saying enforcement ended at 6 p.m., but if people did not read the message and still tried to purchase parking, the meters would accept the payment.

“The meters continued to accept money after 6 p.m., which I didn’t know,” Goddeau said Tuesday. “If people put more money in, it would continue to accumulate (past the end of enforcement).”

She said that this was a result of miscommunication between the village and Flowbird. The village requested the meters not take payment after 6 p.m., but Flowbird implemented the enforcement hours message instead of cutting off payments. However, looking back at available transaction timestamps, she said that few mistaken transactions happened after 6 p.m.

She added that it would be difficult to issue refunds to those who were mistakenly charged for parking on days or at times when it was supposed to be free.

“The only thing we could refund are credit cards, because if you paid with cash, we don’t know who you are,” she said. “If someone called (for a refund) … I could look into it and attempt to try, but there’s no way for me to personally tell.”

Because of compliance with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) data security standards, Goddeau said, the village does not have credit card records for the meters going farther back than a month. It also does not receive the full credit card number, another security measure. So, if someone requested a refund, Goddeau would likely no longer have records of their credit card transaction or their full card number to refund.

“We have learned a lot,” Goddeau said. “A lot of these parking laws were put in force before we were employed here, before our trustees were in office, and it really made us kind of sit up and take attention.”

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Holiday road

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According to village parking laws, there should be no charge for parking on New Year’s Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day or Christmas Day. Other federal holidays, such as Juneteenth or Veterans Day, are not listed in the law as exempt days for parking enforcement. Village officials were unaware of this rule until Monday morning, Devlin said, and parking has been enforced every day of the year in the village.

“Jackie (Kelly) just made us aware of that. Luckily, we have someone who likes to go back and read all this stuff,” Devlin said. “But, obviously, in a tourist town when it’s most important, we can’t have that, so we will be addressing that.”

Devlin clarified that, since holidays are the village’s “busy time,” the board will likely in the future look into allowing parking enforcement on those holidays. For now, though, the meters will be updated to no longer enforce parking on the listed holidays. Goddeau said Tuesday that the same potential refund situation applies for people who were mistakenly charged on holidays; She can try her best, but PCI compliance will likely stand in the way.

Village attorney Janet Bliss told the board during Monday’s meeting that the entire parking law should be reevaluated.

“That local (holiday parking) law has been in place for many, many years and nobody wanted to recognize that change,” Bliss said. “Quite frankly, the whole local law about parking and about street designations, which I’ve indicated in the past, should be looked at in total — not just piecemeal.”

“I agree,” Devlin said.