Sycamore gets surplus meter pieces from Joliet

SYCAMORE – The city’s penny parking meters have found some extra time.

The Joliet City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved donating 584 coin-operated parking meters to Sycamore, one of the few communities in the country to still use penny meters. Joliet transitioned to battery-operated digital meters about five years ago.

The Joliet City Council approved a motion in a resolution declaring the meters, plus other city property such as vehicles and fire department equipment and televisions, as surplus.

Sycamore now has enough parts to keep its penny parking meter system working for at least the next few years, said Giovanni Serra, Sycamore’s parking enforcement officer.

“We want to be nostalgic in our area,” he said. “We don’t want to be high-tech.”

Donated meters that don't work will be salvaged for spare parts, such as timers, which have been especially difficult for Serra to locate because the meter company, Duncan Solutions, no longer makes them.

“We’ll use the ones that work well,” Serra said. “The ones that don’t work, well I’ll strip them down. From what I’ve seen, about 50 of them need to be stripped.”

Sixteen parking meters are currently in shop at the Sycamore Police Department because the timers move too fast, short-changing motorists, Serra said.

Sycamore has 316 serviceable spots for the parking meters, Serra said. The meters accept pennies, nickels and dimes – a penny buys 12 minutes, a nickel an hour, and a dime, two hours.

If the time runs out, vehicle owners can receive a $1 parking ticket.

City officials will pick the meters up in about two weeks, then Serra will spend another two weeks testing the meters, he said.

Sycamore's antiquated parking system has made national news – including a segment on NBC Nightly News.

After the reports, Sycamore officials were contacted by companies in New Jersey, Texas, Ohio and Arizona with possible spare parts – but it was ultimately Joliet that will keep Sycamore’s parking system thriving in the digital age.

Tim Kerr, parking facility serviceman in Joliet, said he he first noticed the meters when he visited Sycamore last August to referee a football game. After media reports that Sycamore needed parts, he reached out to offer Joliet’s surplus meters that were taking up storage space.

“I just don’t throw anything away,” Kerr said. “I keep stuff just in case we need it.”

Joliet officials planned to sell the meters to scrap yards, Joliet City Manager Jim Hock said. After Serra and Sycamore City Manager Brian Gregory met with Joliet officials last month, they agreed to pay $300 for all of them, slightly more than the scrap value.

“It’s nice to find somebody who can use the actual meters for replacement parts,” Hock said.

Although Joliet’s meters are nickel, dime and quarter meters and Sycamore meters accept pennies, nickels and dimes, the mechanics of both are interchangeable, Gregory said.

“The whole head is exactly the same,” Gregory said. “The coin slot is what’s different.”

Sycamore Mayor Ken Mundy praised both his city and Joliet for working together so well, and the cost efficiency of it all.

“It keeps the small-town atmosphere in our downtown,” Mundy said. “People are surprised and have a little fun with what are novelty items these days. We’re going to keep our mechanical, old-school system as long as possible.”

At some point, its likely that Sycamore will transition to digital meters, Serra said.

“I’d love to see it go high-tech, but it ain’t going to happen for another five or six years,” he said. “We may have to go digital, but that’s going to be down road.”