The City of New Orleans is following through with an ill-advised plan to increase the cost of parking at meters by 20 percent to $1.50 per hour and extend the hours of operation to 6 p..m. on Saturday. Already, parking in New Orleans is a circus as motorists face the choice of parking in exorbitant garages or trying their luck on the streets. In many cases the parking meters are broken or covered for a special event or movie shoot.

The scarcity and dependability of the meters is a real problem; however, the Nagin administration does not care. They just see dollar signs and a way to drive more revenue to City Hall.. The parking meter contract allows an out-of-state company to derive a large percentage of the ticket revenue and the meter maids are given incentives to write as many tickets as possible. These meter maids are ruthless and have no interest in being kind with unsuspecting motorists. Their conduct after the massive Saints parade was atrocious as thousands of tickets were issued to fans trying to watch history in the making. It left many people with a bad taste about visiting New Orleans.

In the Nagin administration there are no economic development plans of any significance. Instead, there are only schemes to try to extract as much money as possible from locals and tourists visiting New Orleans. Their insidious plan is to install more parking meters, extend their hours and raise the cost of parking in New Orleans. In the short term, it may bring in more revenue to City Hall, but it will be at tremendous cost in the long term. This plan will just encourage more shoppers and locals to visit malls and restaurants in Jefferson Parish, where parking is plentiful and free.

The change will be another challenge for motorists trying to navigate and park in the French Quarter. Civic activist Margarita Bergen is very “upset” and claims that the only beneficiaries will be the parking garages, which will increase their rates. According to Bergen, “people just do not want to come to the French Quarter. Sometimes, I get a ticket just from going from the meter machine to my car. Most of the machines do not work, so I need to find one that works and by the time I get to the car, I get a ticket.” Bergen’s story is a very familiar and typical of the reaction from many locals. The new plan will only spur more public outrage.

Fortunately, Mayor-elect Mitch Landrieu will review this plan when he takes office in May. According to Landrieu, “we’re going to review every decision that’s been made, especially those that have been made in the last 90 days.” Landrieu said the he likes the idea of free parking on Saturday, but “it’s something that we will analyze when we get there.”

This new policy is a scam that will backfire as more people will be discouraged from visiting, shopping and dining in New Orleans. The idea is shortsighted and based on the desperate need to increase revenue for the city, which is facing a severe budget deficit. One tourist official privately admitted that the parking meter extension could hurt already struggling French Quarter businesses. Margarita Bergen calls the idea a blatant “rip-off.”

Landrieu would create tremendous goodwill by rescinding the idea and encouraging people to visit New Orleans and spend their money with local merchants.

It is time that city leaders placed the interests of the people over the needs of the City Hall bureaucracy. If the parking meter extension proposal was placed before the voters of New Orleans it would lose overwhelmingly. More public servants need to follow the will of the people instead of trying to force their will on the people.

Mayor-elect Landrieu should rescind this policy and make it the first of many Nagin era policies that he is reversing. It would kickoff his administration in the right way, create plenty of good feelings toward the new Mayor and bolster his honeymoon period, something every new Mayor desires, but not every Mayor receives.