Times are so tight in Montgomery County that a council panel has voted to charge residents for parking near the Rockville library, upsetting city leaders and library fans alike because no other library in the county requires residents to pay to park.
Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett had budgeted $84,000 in next year’s operating budget to reimburse the city of Rockville for library patrons who utilize city-owned parking garages nearby. Patrons validate parking stubs at a machine in the library and are spared the $1 per hour fee. Last Friday, however, two council members on the County’s Transportation, Infrastructure, Energy and Environment Committee voted to end the validation procedure and charge residents for parking to use the library.
“In our urban areas, is it appropriate to offer free parking — period?” Council member Roger Berliner asked. “It isn’t clear to me that we should. There are many county services where we don’t provide free parking nearby, and givenour current budget situation, I’m just not sure we should be funding this either.”
A 2006 resolution authored by Council member Phil Andrews prohibits the county from charging residents to park near libraries, saying at the time that parking fees may “impose a barrier for the poor” and would “establish a de facto admissions fee for the many county residents who have no reasonable way of getting to a library other than driving.”
Andrews sent council members a memo Monday saying it was inappropriate to use budget action to change county policy, and that residents “might feel blindsided by this sudden effective reversal of existing policy.”
Rockville City Council member Anne Robbins said the change “came out of nowhere.”
“Citizens having free parking at the library pays the county back tenfold in what it does to educate residents,” Robbins said.
Council Member Nancy Floreen chairs the panel that shot down the funding — she was the lone vote to retain free parking for Rockville library patrons, but she said the debate illustrates the county’s budget difficulties. Montgomery is facing a $297 million budget gap.
“Montgomery County has a breaking point, and I think we’ve reachedit,” Floreen said.
On Monday, Floreen suggested that all county departments chop their budgets by 2 percent more than the county executive proposed, saying that could reduce the need for the 8.3 percent property tax rate increase sought by Leggett.
