Three vendors of “smart” parking meters will give Missoula residents hands-on demonstrations at a Parking Meter Open House on the evening of Tuesday, Feb. 24, at the Holiday Inn Missoula Downtown.

Parking Commission Director Anne Guest said the open house is the next step in a process to replace the old manual parking meters that have been in downtown Missoula for over six decades..

"We started this process almost a year ago," Guest said. "The Parking Commission determined that we needed to replace the old mechanical meters, so we embarked on a fairly expensive public process to get input from the public in March and April of last year. From that we sent out a proposal, and we've received that proposal back."

Guest said the event at the Holiday Inn will allow residents to have a hands-on experience with the three choices of new digital parking meters.

"Our open house will take place on Tuesday the 24th, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Holiday Inn, downtown," she said. "We're going to have each vendor in a separate room so people can go from room to room to room. We will have surveys available so they'll be able to let us know what they like and don't like about each parking meter, so there will be an opportunity for the public to provide their input."

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