Is it a move that will hurt Columbia?

There are some towns around that have thriving downtowns and others who want to have thriving downtowns. I think Columbia is in the category of wanting to have a thiriving downtown.
However, if you noticed this month on thr back of sewer bills that were sent to property owners, sometime in the next month, the borough of Columbia will recalibrate its meters, changing the cost of parking in downtown from the current 25 cents for an hour or 50 cents for two hours to 25 cents for 30 minutes.
While it might be a surprise that this is happening now, its actually a plan that has been on the books for about two years and never followed through with. When talking with a borough official on Friday at the market, I was told this was approved two years ago and the previous occupant of one of the higher ranking posts in Columbia never follwoed through with the plan. Now, with a different person sitting in this position, he's finally getting around to cleaning up a mess he was left.
I'm downtown everyday and unless there are people and cars I don't see, we do not have a thriving downtown. We may in ther future, so for now, I hope council rconsiders this decision, until conditions improve. A couple of things I see happening, not including people coming downtown, is, one, those visiting will not come back to our town. Two, those who park downtown, will now look to park elsewhere where there are no meters, thus taking other parking spaces, which is legal, leading to other problems. Three, it will make downtown more of a ghost town more than it is some days.
No one knows for sure how much we collect in meter deposits, but one thing it will do is add more parking tickets, which will lead to citations from the local judge, which will line our financial pockets in the end. If that's how we have to get money in, that is sad.
Also talked with some business folks downtown. They were not aware of these plans until they got their sewer bills and don't remember being contacted for their thoughts on this issue. Again, this is not a good way to do business either/
Perhaps a better way would be to enforce our codes and get we will get more money from these fines.
I'm just not in favor of this decision and if voters choose to elect me on Tuesday, I will add this to my concenrs of how to improve our town.