Convenient parking places are hard to find during the season along Ocean Boulevard. There is too little parking for the number of visitors we have, and even if you think it is not a problem now, it will become one. Vero is attracting more people, as tourist traffic and beach use grows, parking issues become more pronounced. The city is getting more aggressive in handling the parking issue, as it has developed a list of possible solutions, and there is a roving police car marking tires, giving tickets to those who park too long.

The list of ideas includes some standard ones, parking meters, bussing employees to Riverside Park, rearranging the parking along Cardinal to increase the number of spaces, and while these have their merits, they are not effective solutions or accepted by the community. There are two new ideas, one is a parking garage that could be built in the Ocean Grill parking area, therefore increasing the number of available parking places, and a second is a new police tool, a license plate reader with a clock, that a roving policeman could use going up and down the streets, catching people who parked too long, even if they moved their car to another parking place. Both new ideas have considerable merit.

Stay tuned, as this issue is complicated and difficult to get universal agreement. The problem is really seasonal, and you don’t want to punish the year-round residents with something that can’t be adjusted with the changes in congestion.