Committee to consider ParkMobile contract after resident complaints that FlowBird app and kiosks failed

Several residents told the committee they had repeated failures using the FlowBird app, the text-pay option and said kiosk signage was hard to find; one resident urged the borough to accelerate a contract with ParkMobile. "Can you give some detail? Because it's cleared nobody out on Facebook or in the general public knows anything about this new contract, whether it's going to replace your existing app, whether it's gonna be alongside," Matt McBride, a resident, asked during public comment. Ramsey told the committee FlowBird was now owned by ParkMobile and that the borough plans to allow both apps to work once ParkMobile is added. "FlowBird is actually FlowBird is now owned by ParkMobile, so both of these apps will when they get both up and running for for Westchester, they you can use either 1," Ramsey said. Staff said they planned to put the ParkMobile contract on the next agenda and that the technical switch could happen quickly, but full on-street wayfinding and signage updates would lag the contractual start. Ramsey said the borough expects kiosks to be installed as part of a capital purchase: five additional kiosks were included in the capital budget and will appear as a purchase order on the October finance agenda. Residents reported specific failures: multiple unsuccessful text-pay attempts, unclear kiosk locations, and a case where an app prompt tied to an outstanding parking ticket blocked further progress through the application. Staff urged residents to contact the parking office when the app fails but acknowledged there have been connectivity and usability problems. Staff also described ongoing vendor- and software-related transitions: monthly parker accounts currently live in a vendor Zephyr account; the borough plans to create its own Zephyr account to centralize accounting and ensure revenue is recorded to the borough before Colonial Parking is paid. Staff said they will work with vendors on signage and customer support before rollout and aim to have the ParkMobile contract on the next committee agenda for approval.