Jerry Larsen, a candidate for East Hampton Village mayor in June’s election, discussed his plan to charge for parking in the commercial district and use the revenue to finance the installation of a centralized sewer system in an interview last week.
“It’s a simple way to make money,” said Mr. Larsen, the former East Hampton Village police chief who will be running against Barbara Borsack, the deputy mayor. (According to several souces, the board’s Arthur Graham is also planning to enter the race.)
Mr. Larsen envisioned having drivers pay for parking in the village’s lots and on its streets via a smartphone app similar to the one now in use at East Hampton Airport. “You’d get the first two hours free, and then it would be about $3 per hour, and maybe you’d increase the amount by the hour to encourage turnover. That’s the stuff we’d have to talk about.”
Mr. Larsen said the ticket machines in the Reutershan and Schenck parking lots typically dispense about one million tickets a year. “A million cars at an average of $3, that’s $3 million a year,” he said, unlike the revenue earned from issuing visitors a citation for a parking violation. “You could be a billionaire and if you get a parking ticket it sends you through the roof,” he said. “I’ve seen it. I was police chief for a long time. People get angry.”
Last fall, the village board hired an engineering firm, Nelson and Pope, to develop plans for a sewage treatment system. Without a system that can handle additional density and reduce the nitrogen that adversely affects ground and surface waters, board members have said the village cannot safely bring new restaurants and other businesses into the district, nor can they provide more affordable housing by increasing the number of second-story apartments on Newtown Lane and Main Street. The company promised to recommend cost-effective systems, but nevertheless, former mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. had repeatedly warned that it would be an expensive undertaking.
To maximize the revenue from paid parking, Mr. Larsen said he has a plan to increase the number of parking spaces in the village simply by re-striping. He retained Michael King, the owner of Traffic Calmer, a consulting firm, who was able to draft a plan for 12 new parking spots in Reutershan by converting spaces along its southern end from parallel to angled, drive-in parking. In the Schenck lot, Mr. King’s redrawing of the lines created 14 more spaces. He also converted the parallel parking spaces on Newtown Lane, from Pleasant Lane up to the crosswalk in front of Scoop du Jour, to drive-in parking, which created 47 more spaces.
“Newtown Lane is the same size as Sag Harbor Main Street and Southampton Main Street, so it works, that’s where I got the idea,” said Mr. Larsen. The change, he said, would make it easier for less-accomplished drivers to park and keep them from circling through the parking lots. “To me, this is a no-brainer: You pick up parking, it pays for the sewer system, it makes it more user-friendly, and lets people spend more time in the village. I think it’s a win all the way around,” he said.
Another key element of his plan, Mr. Larsen said, would be to provide a shuttle between the long-term parking lot and Reutershan via Herrick Park, to encourage those who work in the village to use the long-term lot, thereby freeing up spaces elsewhere. “If you want it all to work, you need the employees to have a shuttle, more parking, and paid parking,” he said.
When he launched his campaign last spring, Mr. Larsen had said he was in favor of having term limits for all board members, but last week, he said he had changed his mind, and only the mayor should be limited to three terms, that is, 12 years. Long mayoral tenures, he said, “breed too much complacency.”
To illustrate his point, he cited Randy Johnston, a village resident, who had asked the board to provide recycling bins in the commercial district. “It’s incredible to me that Randy Johnston brought this to the board in June 2019 and nothing’s been done,” said Mr. Larsen. “I never even realized they weren’t there, but he’s absolutely right. If I was in charge, it would have been fixed the next day.”
He also referenced Colleen Moeller, the owner of the Petit Blue children’s store, who was recently found guilty of violating the village’s sign code by placing a chalkboard with the words “Welcome to Petit Blue” outside her store. “The problem is the laws are outdated and need to be changed,” he said. “I mean, you can’t draw attention to your store? That’s the most asinine rule I’ve ever heard in my life.”
The village, he said, should loosen its regulations and then adjust if need be. “Do you want sidewalk sales all over the village? No, but if we talked to all the store owners we could figure out a happy medium,” he said. “We could always clamp back down. This is not New York City; if we try something and it doesn’t work we can try something else.”
Although he is not a village official, Mr. Larsen said he has been attempting to broker a peace between the residents of McGuirk Street, who have been seeking to have PSEG Long Island, the utility company, bury transmission lines and lower poles on their street, and those on Cooper Lane, the street where PSEG has proposed installing a “monster pole” that would allow the lines to be buried.
Mr. Larsen said he recently met with Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc to discuss the matter. “I talked to him at length and he kind of agreed that we should move the monster pole off of Cooper Lane, but we would have to find a location that the town board and PSEG would agree to,” he said.
“Obviously I’m not in a position to have a conversation with PSEG now, but once I get into office, we can move it to another location and have PSEG agree to pay for the extra distance,” he said.
