NEVADA CITY, Calif. — Nevada City leaders recently voted to increase the parking meter fees, a move that aims to bring in more revenue that will be partially used to help prevent wildfires.
"Forever they've been 25 cents an hour," said Nevada City's Vice Mayor, Erin Minett.
Minett says the increased fees can bring in about half a million dollars a year. More than 20 percent of those funds, about $120,000, would go toward the city's fire mitigation fund.
"We can hire people to come and clear the vegetation," added Minett. "[We want to buy] a new street sweeper, so we can remove all the pine needles. This is tree heaven, so we're getting the pine needles off the streets."
Minett told ABC10 that the City plans to use some of the money to buy an emergency siren that would go on the roof of the city hall building.
"If we have an emergency and the power goes down, our cell phones go down [and] our landlines go down," said Minett. "There's no way to warn people, and that siren was an amazing thing that we had and we want to put it back up."
Chris Van Allen, a Nevada City resident, believes the 25 cent fee was always light but doesn't agree with the city raising it to $1.
"I think maybe taking it in increments of 25 cents, 6 months at a time, would have been a better thing. Maybe 50 cents, but a dollar is too much," said Van Allen.
He hopes the city will make good use of the money, but says it's ultimately up to each resident to come together to keep their community safe by clearing the vegetation around their homes.
"Maybe give some teeth to the fire department so they can go in an enforce that rather than counting on 25 cents in a meter, and then it's going to spend it this way or that way. Let's all get together and clear the property around our houses," said Van Allen.