The city has now officially gone out of it's mind. We need the extra money to pay for what? The ambassadors. My god what a waste of money. Remember the city does own mini sweepers for the side walks. Where are they? For the money it costs for the ambassadores we can buy five truck loads of brooms to hand out to property owners. Do people realize part of the ambassadores cost is sent out of state to the company who runs the program in various citys? Keep the money here. Is this just the city's ego? Just wate untill the store owners start complaining there business is being hurt because customers will no longer come to easton

The ambassadors are a good program that has positive ROI. They do more than sweep the streets. A huge part of their job is hospitality. You can hand out all the brooms you want, most won't use them because they think it's the city's job to keep the streets clean. Take it from someone who does sweep. This is just the wrong mechanism thru which to pay for it. Further, the majority of the increase seems to go to just pay for the new equipment. What's the point if it ends up deterring people from coming downtown. As a downtown merchant, I can't really take a decrease in my customer base. It's also a slap in the face that my customers, who do pay, will be subsidizing the businesses across the street who's customers routinely do not pay. The community wants to encourage redevelopment, but this strategy seems short-sighted towards that endeavor. If all we keep doing is fleecing our visitors, we'll become less inviting. Rebuilding a community costs money. The citizens of Easton need to come to realize that and stop looking for ways to get other people to pay for it.

@Ronnie- there are plenty of other communities that use sidewalk bumpouts as a way of increasing pedestrian safety without having issues with plowing. That's just a canard. And if the the plow drivers can't navigate around them, then they shouldn't hold that job. Further, you're convaluting the issues with the construction on south third. It was the last part of a larger utility upgrade project for that section of town. And denigrating the Easton arts community is ridiculous. They're pulling their weight. The same can't be said for some of the owner's of vacant property, like Mr. Kasis or the Rock Church. An informed person would realize that instead of blindly throwing rocks.

Amend you are right it is fleecing our visitors but it is also fleecing our neighbors who live downtown. When I moved here if I left for work at 7 and came home at 5pm I did not have to worry about meeters. Now I have to buy a parking sticker for $100. Every one who has a car and lives downtown has to buy a sticker. All the people who live on southside are lucky. It stinks when a resident cant even park in front of his own house. Every one who owns a home downtown should get one spot free. We pay taxes. But no thats thousands of $ for the city

Wrong way to go guys...raising the rates will only cause visitors to make different decisions away from the downtown. As a business owner that has a LOT of customers that are downtown for short duration of time, and many up to 8 or 9 at night, this will potentially have an adverse impact.

Easier to remember meter times 9 am to 9 pm ? Much easier to forget you don't have to feed the meter after 6 pm while you spend your money downtown , totally disagree with this as for the curbing on 3rd street already noticing broken curbing , just a matter of time till a plow destroys it , it a circle curb much harder to plow around

I do love that area , city did a great job welcoming visitors to our city , also bottom of college hill area looks great too !!!

Why not just create an artificial moat around downtown and charge $20 to enter?

Oli I'll pay $20. to get out