City Manager Fidel Maltez wants to end the daily 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. street sweeping on Broadway and start parking enforcement there at 9 a.m. instead of 8 a.m., changes he says would let residents park on Broadway overnight and give them more time to move their cars in the morning.
Nothing changes yet. The current sweeping hours and meter rules stay in force until the Traffic and Parking Commission holds a public hearing and adopts the change, and no hearing date has been posted.
Maltez laid out the plan in a letter to the City Council dated November 10. The letter is in the packet for the council’s meeting on Monday, November 16, at 7 p.m. at City Hall, 500 Broadway, which the city posted Thursday afternoon.
What the letter says
The letter answers order 2677, which Councillor Lisa Santagate filed and the council adopted on November 2. That order asked the manager to explore changing the 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. sweeping schedule on Broadway and delaying meter enforcement until 9 a.m., with the goal of making metered spaces available for overnight parking. Our account of that meeting is here.
Maltez wrote that over the past few months the city has received feedback from residents on “simple changes that would improve parking conditions in Chelsea,” and that one of them is eliminating the daily sweeping on Broadway.
“We believe that eliminating street sweeping during these hours will make it easier for residents to park on Broadway,” he wrote. On enforcement, he wrote that the city can start at 9 a.m. rather than 8 a.m., “giving residents a longer window to move their cars in the morning, before they are ticketed.”
The next step is a public hearing
The manager cannot make the change by letter. He told the council he will send a request to the Traffic and Parking Commission to hold a public hearing and, after the hearing, to adopt the change. “We believe that this will be seen very positively by our residents,” he wrote.
Under the city charter, the commission’s votes go back to the City Council, as its November 4 actions do on Monday’s agenda.
What the letter does not say
- Which blocks of Broadway are covered.
- Whether Broadway would be swept at another hour or on fewer days, or how the street would be kept clean.
- When the commission will hold the hearing, or when the new hours would take effect.
- Whether the 9 a.m. start for enforcement applies only to Broadway meters.
Those answers would come at the commission’s hearing. Until the signs change, a car left on Broadway during the posted sweeping hours can still be ticketed.
Monday’s meeting
The letter is listed as a communication from the city manager, item 26CM164. The rest of the agenda, including the public hearing on property tax rates, is in our preview.