Who says you can’t buy time?

To the chagrin of the Downtown Merchant’s Association, certainly not the City of Nogales, which last week converted all of the 334 parking meters from two-hour limits to four hours.

Bruce Bracker is president of the downtown merchants. He said during discussions with city officials late last month, association members agreed that meters along the Robbins Avenue and International Street be converted to four hours. “In that conversation we requested Morley Avenue remain two-hour parking.

“Two hours is the proven number (according to parking studies). It keeps traffic flowing into your stores,” Bracker said. “If the proven number was four hours, we would have asked for four hours when the meters were originally installed.”

Deputy City Manager John E. Kissinger said the concept behind adjusting the meters was to allow shoppers from north of the border to leave their cars longer on the streets, allowing them more time to visit shops and restaurants in ambos Nogales.

This small economic shot in the arm to our Mexican sister city it was thought would help get cash registers ringing in Nogales, Sonora and translate into those business owners and their employees coming to spend more money in downtown Nogales, Ariz.

“Believe me, I understand that economic cycle,” said Bracker, but added that he anticipates that by converting all of the meters, it is more likely the parking spaces will be used by workers from both sides of the border.

“That is something that is very hard to control,” Bracker said. With the holiday shopping season upon us, “this is not a very good time to be experimenting.”

He said that the decision to convert all of the meters instead of just the meters on Robbins and International as was discussed as the meeting “was made by city staff without community input and that is what we strenuously object to.”

Kissinger admitted the outcome of the conversion of the meters is yet to be appreciated fully. In any case, he said that if the extended meter time proves a poor decision, “we can change the meters back with ease probably within one day.”

Asked if she felt the longer time on the meters would present unfair competition to private lot owners, Danielle Humphrey disagreed. She is an executive assistant for Mike Pendergraft, owner of American Valet, which owns the modern parking facility constructed recently on Crawford Street.

“Our rate is $4 for the entire day,” she said, noting that motorists would pay $2 just for the four hours.

Besides, Humphrey said, the firm she represents is considering reducing the rate to $3 as are other lot owners in the downtown area.