Charlestown residents Erin Woods and Shannon Fabiano-McLaughlin seem to have struck a common bond of frustration amongst their neighbors as their effort to change parking restrictions in Charlestown has come out of the gate sprinting.
Woods reported this week that the effort has already received 250 signatures of residents before organizers had really even gotten started. Now, on Monday, May 4, they will have a meeting at 6:30 p.m. in the community room of the Charlestown A-15 Police Station (2nd floor).
“We have received 250 signatures so far and that’s before we’ve even gotten out and collected signatures,” said Woods, who noted that to date the effort has simply gathered steam via Facebook and word of mouth.
Specifically, they would like to change many of the ‘Resident Only’ 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday parking areas – changing them over instead to ‘Resident Only’ between the hours of 6 p.m. to 10 a.m. seven days a week. They would seek to exclude from the change main arteries like Bunker Hill Street, Main Street and Medford Street.
As part of the process to make such a change, they would have to get signatures on a change petition from 51 percent of the residents of the neighborhood. That’s quite a lot of signatures that they need, but both women pointed out that there is plenty of time to get the work done and a lot of warmer weather on the way when people will be more apt to get out of the house or to attend community meetings/functions.
The perceived problem has been a long-standing issue in the neighborhood, but was made all the much worse this past winter when parking was heavily restricted by ginormous snow banks.
Fabiano-McLaughlin said in a previous story in the Patriot-Bridge that one year her family paid nearly $5,000 in tickets that they got for parking near their home. That, she said, isn’t right.
So far, many agree.
Any questions, please contact Shannon McLaughlin-Fabiano @ [email protected] or Erin Woods @ [email protected] or via Facebook.