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Mill Valley to lease kiosks, add text‑to‑pay and replace failing street meters after diagnostic review
Summary
After city diagnostics found many refurbished single‑space meters failing, council directed staff to lease multi‑space kiosks for four public lots, lease replacement single‑space units, implement Text‑to‑Pay and pilot expanded RSVP options; the city will temporarily absorb convenience fees while monitoring revenues.
City staff reported widespread failures in recently installed single‑space parking meters and recommended a multi‑pronged response: lease eight multi‑space kiosks to serve four off‑street lots (City Hall, Depot Plaza, Muni Lot and Mill Creek), remove single‑space poles in those lots, lease ~110 replacement meters for city streets, implement IPS Text‑to‑Pay, and adopt a short‑term (3‑year) lease model to preserve flexibility as technology evolves.
Captain Lindsay Haines (Mill Valley Police Department) told the council that a recent diagnostic review found roughly 122 functional meters in the field, with approximately 211 reporting as out of order; a sample of failed units showed fried motherboards, consistent with the meters being older refurbished units previously used in other jurisdictions. To increase payment options, staff proposed adding multiple ways to pay in lots (kiosk coin/card/tap, text‑to‑pay, QR codes and an annual RSVP sticker for frequent users).
Staff presented three options for handling convenience/transaction fees associated with credit cards and text‑to‑pay (options ranged from city absorbing all fees to passing the exact convenience fee to users). After council discussion about the parking fund balance and the program’s inventory‑management mission, the council directed staff to proceed with the equipment and rollout recommendations and accepted a short‑term approach to transaction fees (the council agreed to have the city absorb fees initially and reassess later).
City managers said the parking fund showed prior net revenue in the mid‑hundreds of thousands in earlier reporting years and that securing reliable payment technology and enforcement staffing were priorities to restore service levels and turnover. Council asked staff to run a robust community education and marketing rollout (signage, QR codes and inclusion in city mailers) and to bring program metrics back to the Business Vitality Committee for fine‑tuning enforcement policy, employee parking and other operational details.
The council approved the staff recommendations in a motion and asked staff to push back on IPS pricing for text‑to‑pay transaction fees while implementing the kiosks and RSVP signage in time for holiday parking and a phased enforcement approach.
