Camden Police are reviewing camera footage from businesses all over downtown after vandals damaged 25 of the 31 new parking kiosks that were just installed over the weekend.
“This has never happened anywhere else,” Town Manager Audra Caler said Monday morning. “They have installed these kiosks in the sketchiest places in the world and this didn’t happen.”
The company, Butts Ticket Systems of Pennsylvania, sent a team to Camden to install the kiosks starting Friday night and continued the work over the weekend, putting in 31 new kiosks around downtown by Sunday.
On Monday morning, residents were greeted by the sight of purple spray paint on the new screens and some kind of expanding white foam sprayed into the actual machines through the card readers and receipt terminals.
Jamie Groff of the company doing the installation was outside the Town Office on Monday morning trying to scrape out one of the machines to see if it could be salvaged.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said.
He said the kiosks are not equipped with cameras, but there are many other surveillance cameras around town, which Town Office staff confirmed captured images of the perpetrator.
Caler does not believe that the foam reached the internal components, so it may be a matter of repair or cleanup or swapping out the card readers. However, the damage is still being assessed.
Each kiosk is worth $7,000, not including installation costs.
Anyone found guilty of the crime could be on the hook for restitution to the town to cover those damages.
Camden Police Detective Sgt. Aaron Bailey has been investigating.
Caler said all of the downtown business owners have been very helpful in sharing information and camera footage as well.
She said the vandals also hit the Camden Skate Park.
The installation of the kiosks comes as the town institutes a controversial new paid parking program, aimed at freeing up parking downtown during the busy summer months and generating revenue. Most other tourist destinations on Maine’s coast already charge for parking during the high season, according to town officials.
For the most part, the rate is going to be $3 per hour with a two-hour per day free allowance for residents, who will have a way to put their license plate numbers into the kiosk to take advantage of that service. Parking fees are also going to be waived Sundays before noon to provide for churchgoers.
The town plans to start the program in full Sept. 15 to run through Oct. 15 for this season.
“It’s not going to stop it,” Caler said of the town’s commitment to the new program. “If I have to scrub them out myself, it’s going to happen.”
This story appears through a media partnership with Midcoast Villager.
