A Vandergrift resident advocating for legally operating parking meters throughout the borough appears to be making headway on her mission.

Rae Ann Bruner has been spearheading efforts to fix broken, inaccurate and jammed parking meters since mid-March.

“They have begun the process of gutting and repairing the meters,” Bruner said.

The borough has about 330 parking meters.

The Westmoreland County Bureau of Weights and Measures ordered borough officials in March to cover all of the meters with plastic bags because they had not been certified by paking meter inspectors.

In an effort to get the meters back into service, police Chief Joe Caporali, Mayor Lenny Collini, Councilman Tom Holmes and resident Vern Sciullo recently were trained and certified as parking meter inspectors.

“We were trained to recertify the parking meters,” Caporali said. “All of the contents of the meters will be removed and taken to the borough building to be recertified.”

The newly certified inspectors received one day of training in April at the borough building.

Borough Secretary Steve DellDonne said the meters are being repaired at no cost to borough residents because the inspectors are in-house.

DelleDonne said officials are hopeful the meters will be operational soon, possibly by the end of May.

“We’re losing revenue,” he said.

If a parking meter is too damaged and must be replaced, DellDonne estimated the cost for a new meter would be around $200.

Joyce Hanz | Tribune-Review Vandergrift resident Rae Ann Bruner stands next to a bagged parking meter along Columbia Avenue.  

Bruner said she’s pleased that once the meters are repaired and certified residents and visitors can be certain they’re getting the exact amount of time they’re paying for.

“I know some people may think it’s silly to care about the meters being accurate, but when we pay $3.79 for a gallon of gas, we expect an entire gallon of gas for $3.79,” she said. “If we pay 25 cents for 60 minutes (at a meter), then we should expect the entire 60 minutes. It’s that simple.”

To date, meters on Grant Avenue and those in the Columbia Avenue parking lot are undergoing recertification.

Once those are recertified, meters along Columbia Avenue will be gutted and repaired.

Vandergrift business owner Robert Buchanan said he hasn’t received any updates from borough officials, but he noticed several of the internal mechanisms have been removed and a lot of the bags are off the meters.

Collini, Holmes and Sciullo did not respond to requests for comment.

Borough officials plan to hire a part-time parking meter enforcement officer once all of the meters are certified and operational, Caporali said.

In February, council voted to eliminate boroughwide free parking on Thursdays and to increase parking fines.

“A notice will be posted on the borough website when the parking meters are put back into service,” Caporali said.

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