A pilot project to limit parking and step up enforcement at Rocky Point Park over the summer hit some unintended targets in the pocketbook: Port Moody lifeguards.
Lifeguards who work at Rocky Point Pool discovered the hard way they weren't exempt from the new parking regulations, which limited parking to a maximum of four hours on weekends as well as during the week, when they were ticketed this summer.
Michaela Slinger said she was working her second summer at the pool on shifts that ranged from four to eight hours and said she received two or three tickets throughout the season. She thought her supervisor was going to handle the matter with the city's bylaws department and have the tickets quashed but learned last week most of the tickets would stand.
"We found out we'd be on the hook for some or all of the tickets," Slinger told The Tri-City News, "even though we're working for the city and providing a city service."
Slinger worked mainly weekdays, teaching lessons from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., but said because she needed to be on deck before the shift started, it would automatically put her over the parking limit. Dashing out to move her car partway through the shift wasn't an option because of requirements to have a certain number of lifeguards present at all times.
A full-day shift didn't present much opportunity, either, Slinger said, because the hot, dry summer meant the parking lot was constantly full.
"On a hot day, there's no way you're going to be parking close by," she said.
James Stiver, PoMo's general manager of development services, said for the last two weeks of July, staff did a "soft roll-out" of the new parking regulations — changing signage in the lot, installing a digital reader board on Murray Street to alert drivers of the new rules and issuing 83 warning tickets.
Starting Aug. 1, the ticket books came out and anyone over the four-hour limit received a ticket; 200 were issued until Sept. 20, when staff determined attendance at the park was down and enhanced enforcement was no longer necessary.
And some of those ticketed were the city's own lifeguards.
"We were treating staff the same as everyone else because we have no ability to distinguish between staff and the average resident or non-resident who wants to park there," Stiver said.
The city was "very clear" with businesses in the park and lifeguard managers that staff had to abide by the parking regulations and find other options, including parking on Murray Street or at the West Coast Express lot on weekends.
"We gave them a bit of a break," Stiver said of the lifeguards, and quashed tickets for "one-time offenders. We treated it as a warning. But the multiple offenders, they were not quashed."
Staff will be reporting to council's committee of the whole meeting on Nov. 17 on the results of the pilot project and, if council wants to continue the program throughout the year and/or next summer, Stiver said identifying a staff parking area may be an option.
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