KINGSTON — The Port of Kingston is giving its parking stalls a pedicure.

And with new paint covering where once “two-hour parking” paint used to be, rumors are flying the port is doing away with its free parking.

Port Manager Mike Bookey assures the public that the Port is not.

Port employees, including business manager Scott Coulter, were out painting the stalls last week, sprucing up fading lines.

But the paint has another purpose.

“We are looking at getting an electronic pay box,” said Coulter.

The automated machine, which the port expects to acquire in the fall, would replace the cash boxes for the paid parking areas.

The paid parking stalls are currently being renumbered sequentially to enable such a machine that would accept debit and credit card transactions.

“I don’t think it’s going to affect our two-hour free parking,” Coulter said.

According to Bookey, doing away with free parking is a subject the port has looked into previously.

The idea of turning the roughly 20 two-hour parking stalls to hourly paid parking for 30 cents an hour has been kicked around but at this point the idea hasn’t gone anywhere. Any decision regarding turning the parking to all-paid would have to be decided by the port commissioners.

“We talked about it because people abuse it and leave their car down there all day,” Bookey said. “It’s hard for us to go out and mark tires and we’re a short staff anyway.”

The port has a staff of six employees to cover shifts seven days a week.

“We are trying to get rid of the cheaters,” Bookey said, adding for the small staff, patrolling cars that have overstayed their welcome in both the free and paid parking stalls is hard to do.

“We aren’t going to discontinue the free, two-hour parking,” said Port Commissioner Pete DeBoer. “We are talking about enforcing the two-hour limit. When people park in the two hour slots for 12 hours to go shopping in Seattle, that doesn’t work.”

In the past, DeBoer said the port has handed out warnings; however in the past three or four years only one car has been towed.

“It’s a tough thing to police,” he said. “We don’t have anything like meter maids.”

An automated machine for the designated paid parking stalls would make it easier on the staff and customers.

“We are spending way too much port maintenance time just counting cash,” he said. “We have spent so many man hours because it is cash we are handling and have to treat it so securely.”

It takes two port employees between two and four hours to collect, count, and map out the paid vehicles each day to process which vehicles might be cheating the system.

“(The machine) will gain us about 14 to 20 hours of labor savings a a week. When we only have six employees, that’s a lot,” Bookey said.

The machine could print off a map for employees to know who is supposed to be in what spot.

It would also cut down on the, “Oh, I must have misplaced my cash in another slot,” which Bookey said he hears quite often.

“Olympia and Seattle have them, everyone is going to these machines,” Bookey said. “We are actually a little late in the game.”

Those wishing to leave their car for prolonged periods can use their card and the computer with automatically start a countdown. With the current system, employees have to remember which car paid in advance for how many days.

“Having it all computerized for us gives us better control of the money and better customer service,” he said.

Bookey mentioned the possibility of raising the paid prices, which are currently $4 for 12 hours or $8 for all day. No decisions have been made yet, assured both Bookey and DeBoer.

“It depends on the cost of machinery,” DeBoer said. “We try to make it affordable and a friendly place and a good investment for constituents of the Port.”

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