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01/20/2020 11:00 PMFollowing a year of pushback from residents and a failure to deliver the kind of product or features the town was promised, the Beach & Recreation Commission (BRC) voted on Jan. 7 to end the town’s contract with Passport, the company that ran the new beach pass system.
Madison faced a February deadline for choosing to renew or not renew the contract. Beach & Recreation Director Scot Erskine cited a lack of communication from Passport when recommending that the BRC move forward and look for other options.
In addition to the issues experienced over the summer, a meeting intended to showcase fixes and features was canceled by Passport at the last minute in November 2019 and the company had failed to provide meaningful updates to the town in the interim, according to Erskine.
It also became clear that license plate readers, which rely on cell phone services, would not be able to function reliably due to lack of bandwidth and coverage at the beach, Erskine told The Source.
“User friendliness, buying multiple passes—the approval process was cumbersome,” Erskine said. “[Passport] hasn’t been very reactive to what the [BRC] has asked for.”
Last summer, the Passport system, which sought to solve issues with long lines at both the beaches and at Town Campus by employing an online ordering system and the aforementioned license plate scanners, saw a bumpy rollout and drew a harsh pushback from frustrated residents.
Erskine cited a lack of training for the new system as causing some of the rollout issues—another issue with Passport that didn’t seem to have an easy solution. Last year, he said Beach & Rec staff only received an hour or so of training from Passport, and had received no assurances that would be different this year.
Both Erskine and First Selectman Peggy Lyons said that the town is now moving toward what Lyons described as a “Stickers-Plus” model through which anyone who wants a beach pass will be able to purchase a physical marker of some kind, but will not be required to wait in line at the beach or at Town Campus to purchase one.
“We’re trying to develop the online piece, where the pass is more like a membership and you can renew annually so it’ll be quick and easy as long as you don’t change vehicles,” Erskine said at a Board of Selectmen meeting on Jan. 15.
Though final decisions haven’t been made, the town is leaning toward tailoring software used by Beach & Rec staff in order to allow regular citizens to purchase passes or register new vehicles from their own devices, according to Erskine. Physical passes—stickers, mirror-hangers, or some other kind of documentation—could then be printed out and either mailed to an address, or could be picked up at the beach or at Town Campus by the person who purchased them, like a theater will-call, he said.
Erskine said the town is currently working with Vermont Systems, which designed the software currently used by Beach & Rec staff, to tweak the system to allow for these new uses.
One thing the town still has to figure out is enforcement for people who park without a sticker. Erskine said he and the BRC are considering a number of options for this.
“How do we address that, so they’re not getting in for free?” Erskine said. “Is it a, ‘Here’s your notice, thank you for visiting our beach, please remit payment to us.’ Or is a formal ticket process through another agency?”
Erskine emphasized that except in particular cases when the Police Department might need to be involved—handicap parking violations or other overtly illegal parking actions—Beach & Rec staff will remain responsible for parking enforcement.
“Or have an agency that we hire handle” enforcement, he said.
Going forward, Erskine said he expected people to be able to purchase passes in April.
“Every year our target is April 1,” Erskine said.
Erskine said that he was still not sure on a timeline for online purchases, however.