Specially marked meters slated for downtown Tucson and near the University of Arizona could soon buy more than just a few minutes to park your car.
Under a proposal before the Tucson City Council Tuesday night, the 20 meters — dubbed “donation stations” — would take spare change, debit and credit cards specifically to help Tucson’s homeless community.
The city’s smart-parking-meter vendor, IPS Group, has offered to donate the credit-card-enabled, solar-powered meters. Additionally, city staff reports note the company would waive extended warranty charges, credit card processing charges and other fees for the donated meters.
Park Tucson, the city of Tucson’s parking management department, would install the donation meters, which would be painted a bright color to distinguish them from actual parking meters, most likely either bright orange or yellow.
The location of the specialized meters, if approved by the council, has not been finalized.
The man behind the proposal is local businessman John Jacobs, who worked with the Fourth Avenue Merchants Association, the University of Arizona, the Downtown Tucson Partnership and two business associations in the university and Main Gate areas to find a way to help the homeless community.
Jacobs, the founder of the merchant-driven Tucson Change Movement, said the proposal is still a work in progress.
One of the biggest issues still in play is which organization will administer the collected funds.
Jacobs suggests the Community Foundation of Southern Arizona should administer the program, noting it would charge half a cent for every dollar collected. However, processing debit and credit cards would add 1.9 percent charge to every electronic transaction.
“The idea is to be flexible and as agile as possible, he said. “Our objective is 97 cents per dollar going to the street.”
A staff report suggests the city’s Department of Housing and Community Development would recommend to the mayor and council how the donated funds should be given to local agencies providing services to the homeless community.
However, Councilman Richard Fimbres said he is concerned about the proposal, stating he will recommend on Tuesday that the city has as little involvement as possible — allowing the business community’s proposal to be managed by a willing nonprofit partner.
Councilman Steve Kozachik voiced similar concerns last week.
“The businesses came up with the idea, and the businesses should be allowed to carry it through with minimal city involvement.
“Let’s not create an administrative framework that ends up costing more than the program will generate,” he said.
City officials concede the program does include some costs — roughly $5,000 to install the meters and an estimate of less than $3,000 a year to collect cash donations.
Several other cities have similar “donation station” programs already in place, including Phoenix, Las Vegas, Orlando, San Antonio and San Luis Obispo.
