San Bernardino council okays contracted meter technician, narrows paid-parking hours and orders El Camino kiosks removed

San Bernardino — The City Council on April 29 approved multiple measures to stabilize its downtown paid-parking program and give staff more tools to fix recurring kiosk failures.

The council voted unanimously, 5–0, to authorize funding for a contracted master (meter) technician and related kiosk work after staff told members that recent technical troubleshooting by vendor T2 Systems had improved reliability but that the program still needed dedicated, high-level technical support.

Staff framed the funding request as part of a package of fixes to reduce kiosk malfunctions, improve mobile payment options and rebalance enforcement. “They have a path forward that they believe is going to really stabilize the kiosk performance,” interim chief Susan Manheimer (Speaker 5) said of the vendor’s recent on-the-ground work.

Why it matters

Council members said merchants and residents had repeatedly reported errors and frustrating payment flows since the program’s launch. Staff reported roughly 371,705 kiosk transactions since April 2024 and characterized generated revenues as about $1.2 million to date (staff-reported); council members said they needed clearer trend reports to weigh…