Athol Select Board votes to continue free holiday parking

ATHOL – The Select Board voted to continue free downtown parking during the holiday season, after the Parking Benefits District Oversight Committee recommended it be suspended. Committee Chair Gary Deyo went before the board at its Nov. 10 meeting to explain the reasons behind the proposal. At first reading from a prepared statement, Deyo explained that members of the committee “would like to recommend that the Select Board and town manager to discontinue…free parking from Thanksgiving until New Year’s Day. The reason for this is that the residents are abusing the free parking by parking there all day and night.” This, he said, is a disservice to visitors to downtown and was an issue last year. In addition to doing away with the free parking, he added, the committee asked that the parking ambassador be allowed to continue enforcing the two-hour parking limit from Thanksgiving to New Year’s.

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