City tasks police department with increased parking enforcement on Dixon Street

LACONIA — Councilors tasked City Manager Kirk Beattie with working with police to reduce cases of illegal parking on Dixon Street following complaints and concerns voiced by neighborhood residents last week at the regular meeting of city council.

Council had considered designating portions of the odd-numbered side of Dixon a no-parking zone after residents claimed overflow parking from nearby apartments renders them unable to maneuver in and out of their driveways. 

During a public hearing on the parking matter at the June 10 meeting, resident Melodie O’Hara said she initially brought the request before the public works department and complained the police department does not ticket nor have towed vehicles parked improperly there. She asked for an enhanced parking enforcement effort.

“I brought the request because I am personally having issues with parking outside of my house,” she said. “The issue is there’s an apartment building at the corner that’s overpopulated, there’s an absent landlord and there’s a lot of people living there. The problem is they’re blocking my property, I can’t get into my driveway, I can’t get into my side yard.”

Mayor Andrew Hosmer asked O’Hara if she’d contacted the police department in any of these instances and she said she had. 

“So many times that they probably blocked my number,” she said. “I’ve talked to those neighbors — they don’t care. They’re not property owners, they rent.” 

Resident James Poisson, who also lives on the odd side of Dixon Street, said the problem isn’t with the local law, but the enforcement of the existing ordinance.

“It’s not a parking problem, it’s an enforcement problem,” he said. “If you look at her residence, they’re parked on the sidewalk. If you need pictures, I’ve got pictures of all kinds of cars, today, parked on the sidewalk ... There’s no enforcement, that’s all that this is.”

Council voted 5-1 to table the matter and instruct the police department to proactively enforce parking rules along the street, to determine if that action might resolve the problem.

And councilors learned the administration department’s budget isn’t much different from that of last year.

Beattie told councilors the city’s capital outlay budget is projected to be about $2 million. Capital outlay to be bonded includes an $850,000 effort to overhaul the city’s technology infrastructure and $360,000 for improvements to Gale Memorial Library.

The line item for non-department funds includes $40,000 earmarked for homelessness response. Councilors have in recent months discussed a funding effort to allow the police department to increase public outreach for that issue.

“That $40,000 is an arbitrary number, because I don’t have a number to know that X-amount of dollars is going to do X-amount of work, but we wanted to get some money in there so we’re able to do some work,” Beattie said. “A couple of years ago this council put away some money, I think it was $20,000 at the time, for the police department to do some work with homelessness response. That money has been chipped away at and it continues to come down. It’s not earmarked for anything specific other than being around that term, ‘homelessness.’”

The funds could allow officers to interact with the public for education and business support, among other actions yet to be determined. 

The administration department’s budget includes minor increases such as an $8,700 obligation to the Colonial Theatre for lease fees and operating expenses. The special items category will increase 12% to $36,250 in order to fund requests from regional nonprofit organizations to assist with their operations. 

In other business, council: 

• Approved a temporary traffic order and the waiver of fees associated with Laconia Multicultural Festival

• Held a public hearing on increases on the fire department’s EMS insurance billing rates; there was no public input; the resolution was approved

• Held a public hearing for itemized appropriations for city funds for fiscal year 2024-25; there was no public input

• Approved a tentative agreement on cost of living and wage scale increases for the fire department and employees under the State Employees Association

• Approved 2024 year-end budget carryovers

• Scheduled a public hearing for June 24 relative to a request to designate Prescott and Paugus avenues as emergency lanes

• Discussed providing extra solid waste containers

• Approved amendments to the proposed budget for fiscal year 2024-25