{"id":45137,"date":"2024-05-07T19:55:31","date_gmt":"2024-05-07T23:55:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=45137"},"modified":"2024-05-07T19:55:36","modified_gmt":"2024-05-07T23:55:36","slug":"after-a-very-heated-debate-today-lakeland-commissioners-approved-300000-for-led-parking-aids-in-two-downtown-garages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2024\/05\/07\/after-a-very-heated-debate-today-lakeland-commissioners-approved-300000-for-led-parking-aids-in-two-downtown-garages\/","title":{"rendered":"After a very heated debate today, Lakeland Commissioners approved $300,000 for LED parking aids in two downtown garages"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The high cost of implementing changes to Lakeland&#8217;s downtown&nbsp;parking system&nbsp;left nearly half the city commissioners pissed off at staff.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"210\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" src=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/1150.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-45138\" style=\"width:431px;height:auto\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The commission voted 4-3 on Monday morning\u00a0to spend nearly $300,000\u00a0to have Massachusetts-based TCS International Inc. install a parking system in the Main Street and Heritage Plaza parking garages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Commissioners LaLonde, Musick, and Read voted against the project, largely because of the price tag and who would be picking it up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Tess Schwartz, the city&#8217;s traffic operations manager, said the aim was to make the available public parking spots &#8220;very, very straightforward&#8221; for drivers entering the Heritage Plaza parking garage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">LaLonde asked why the Lakeland Downtown Development Authority didn&#8217;t have any financial involvement or contribution to the parking system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Julie Townsend, the LDDA&#8217;s executive director, told the media her organization was never approached about funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Schwartz said the individual parking space indicator lights could be turned red to indicate the slots are unavailable when maintenance is being done \u2014 one possible benefit to the garage&#8217;s private partners. It will also allow the city to better understand how spaces in the garage are being utilized.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The high cost of implementing changes to Lakeland&#8217;s downtown&nbsp;parking system&nbsp;left nearly half the city commissioners pissed off at staff. The commission voted 4-3 on Monday morning\u00a0to spend nearly $300,000\u00a0to have&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45138,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[8428,8426,8427],"class_list":["post-45137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-000-for-led-parking-aids-in-two-downtown-garages","tag-after-a-very-heated-debate-today","tag-lakeland-commissioners-approved-300"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}