AA CBS12 News finds answers for Delray Beach parking issues (WPEC)
DELRAY BEACH, Fla. (CBS12) — Parking problems in Delray Beach.
People tell CBS12 News they’re told parking is free, then they get back to their car and find a ticket waiting.
Andrea Keiser lives and works in Delray Beach, so she parks here often.
Recently, she used an app to pay for parking and received this message on her phone.
It says free parking for 1 hour and 21 minutes, but when she got to her car, she had a ticket for $35.
Keiser isn’t alone. When she went on a Delray community Facebook page called Delray Raw, she saw others had the same experience. “The app was misleading,” Keiser said.
Tony Belmont, another Delray Beach resident, says he too received a ticket after getting the same notification on the app. When he complained to the City of Delray Beach, he was denied and told to spend more time and money in court fighting it.
So CBS12 News reached out to the city for answers. Jorge Alarcon, the Chief Parking Administrator, declined to go on camera, but sent an email, saying the app message only appears during non-payment hours before noon when parking is free. However, Belmont received his message around 8 p.m. Alarcon said it’s not his fault, even though his department controls the app information and says drivers need to look for payment times on the signs.
Keiser says as an attorney, she knows this, but the info was hard to find. “Not all of the parking in Delray has the hours of parking you have to pay for, so it was difficult to verify it,” Keiser said. Keiser decided to just pay the fine.
Alarcon agreed to provide a one-time courtesy dismissal to anyone in the same situation, but didn’t address a permanent solution to the problem. So CBS12 News went to the city manager. He said in an email the matter will be solved as quickly as possible, a win for Andrea Tony and others who park in Delray Beach. Until there is a fix, city officials say the best thing to do is read the fine print and double check with the signage.
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