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# Council to spend $1.8M on new parking meters
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/council-to-spend-1-8m-on-new-parking-meters/
- Published: 2004-03-23T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T04:03:18.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Government & Politics, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*By Daily Press staff*

(Editor’s note: This is part of an ongoing series that tracks the city’s expenditures on the City Council consent agenda. Consent agenda items are routinely passed by the city council with little or no discussion, though many of the items have been part of public discussion in the past.)

By Daily Press staff

COUNCIL CHAMBERS — Local lawmakers are expected to invest $1.8 million tonight to upgrade more than 6,000 parking meters throughout Santa Monica.

Once installed, the electronic meters will accept nickels, dimes and quarters, as well as “stored value” cards sold by City Hall. Each swipe of a stored value card will be worth one hour of metered parking, or the maximum allowed.

Officials decided in December of 2002 to raise to $1 an hour meter rates near the beach and downtown, and to study adding new meters near Santa Monica College and on side streets off of Wilshire and Santa Monica boulevards.

Purchasing the 6,600 new parking meter mechanisms and 6,400 housings will cost City Hall $1,806,306\. The cost of installing the meters is unknown, but officials said the electronic meters are scheduled to be in place in four months.

“As the new meters go in, the rates will go up on those streets,” said Lucy Dyke, City Hall’s manager of transportation planning.

Also on tonight’s consent agenda is $330,000 in labor contracts to hire temporary City Hall workers for code enforcement, construction projects, reviewing building plans and performing geological studies. Another $313,253 is expected to be spent on purchasing two natural gas service trucks for the environmental and public works management department, and $57,600 will likely go towards maintaining computer software.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 23, 2004.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/032304.pdf?ref=smdp.com)