EDITORIAL

It would be even more outrageous, if it wasn’t so familiar. Huntington

Beach has raised the parking rates at Pier Plaza to $9, up $2 over last

summer.

The reason for the increase, city officials say, is to pay for the

planned $6.5-million beach improvements. Plus, there are more amenities

than at the less-expensive state beaches, and it’s closer to the action:

surf contests, free concerts and art shows.

Those are familiar rationales. But they are not, and have never been,

good reasons why residents and visitors should be forced to pay so much

-- more, in fact, than what is charged at Disneyland, where there are

even more amenities than what surrounds the Pier.

Unfortunately, the city has a long history of trying to get a little

extra money from people’s pockets, and all too often it’s been done by

grabbing for that extra nickel, dime or quarter that’s fed into those

greedy parking meters.

There was the attempt in the early 1990s to put parking meters

virtually throughout the city, including at the Central Library. There

was the planned parking lot below the bluffs between Goldenwest and 11th

streets, which was even resurrected after resident opposition initially

squashed it. There was the crackdown on parking at the Downtown parking

structure. Of course, there’s still the ever-vigilant parking patrols

that seem to know when the time is up on the meters a split second before

it is.

And finally, there was the coup de grace in 1997: Putting up parking

meters along that sly strip of free spots on Beach Boulevard between

Pacific Coast Highway and Sunrise Street.

All these machinations -- along with the steady rise in metered

parking rates -- have given Huntington Beach a deserved reputation as a

place to avoid if you’re coming by car. Who in their right mind would

want to shell out those extra dollars for what amounts to a tax on coming

to town and going to the beach?

It’s been said, far more than once, that the city would be better off

encouraging healthy businesses by making the city -- and Downtown in

particular, where business owners have long been vocal in their

opposition to the strict parking regulations -- a shopping and dining

destination. That way, the city could build its budget on sales tax

revenue instead of the nickels and dimes from the meters.

It hasn’t happened in the past, however. And this latest increase

doesn’t leave much reason to hope it will happen in the future.

It’s almost as if city officials can’t stand to see people park for

free and enjoy our Downtown and the beach.

Why is that?