Parking in Jim Thorpe will soon hit motorists a little harder in the wallet.

Jim Thorpe Borough Council on Thursday night authorized its solicitor to draft an ordinance amendment changing the cost of parking at a kiosk space from $1 per hour to $2 per hour Monday through Thursday and $3 per hour Friday-Sunday. If using a credit card, the cost will be $2.50 per hour Monday through Thursday and $3.50 per hour Friday through Sunday.

“I think it’s a good rate because we’ve been leaving a lot of money on the table,” Councilman Connor Rodgers said when proposing the $3 an hour charge on weekends.

Motorists who park in the kiosk spaces currently have to pay from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., but the hours during which the parking fee is active will also change with the ordinance amendment. Council opted Thursday for an 8 a.m.-8 p.m. enforcement.

“With the trains running until 6 p.m., people are spending a lot more time downtown,” Police Chief Joe Schatz said. “Town used to be mostly cleared out by 5 p.m. That is no longer the case.”

The maximum time a car can be parked in one of the kiosk spaces is five hours and that will not change as part of the update.

“I think this moves us in a good direction,” Council President Greg Strubinger said.

Councilman Mike Yeastedt urged caution before the vote was taken, noting that while the move is aimed at getting more money from tourists, locals will also be affected.

Jim Thorpe generated $176,943 in parking kiosk revenue in 2023.

Lost revenue

Borough officials are hopeful the increased rate helps offset some of the costs associated with heavy tourism.

“The one taxing option we had to try and obtain some funding from the tourism downtown, our largest person was taken away from us on that,” Borough Manager Maureen Sterner said.

Pennsylvania legislators passed Senate Bill 1188 in 2020, part of which states that an amusement tax doesn’t apply to primarily freight railroads such as Reading and Northern Railroad, which runs scenic rides out of Jim Thorpe.

The dispute goes back to 2011 when Jim Thorpe’s tax collector notified the railroad it was subject to the amusement tax. The railroad, however, claimed it was exempt under a federal transportation statute.

The railroad was added to the delinquent tax roles in 2017. A complaint was filed with the local district justice, who determined the railroad had failed to comply with the amusement tax ordinance. The railroad appealed the decision to the Carbon County Court of Common Pleas in 2019.

Berkheimer, the tax collection agency representing Jim Thorpe borough, sought nearly $100,000 in unpaid amusement taxes for the prior three years, leading to train’s decision to stop the rides in late 2019, including the popular Santa trains in December.

Soon after the train made its announcement, the two sides met on multiple occasions, with the borough eventually agreeing to drop the lawsuit.

State Sen. John Blake introduced a bill to clarify that local taxes authorized by Act 47, Act 205, or home rule powers shall not be included in the calculation of Act 511 aggregate tax limits.

State Sen. Dave Argall offered an amendment dealing with amusement tax.

The amendment prohibits a local taxing authority such as Jim Thorpe from levying, assessing or collecting an amusement or admission tax based on a charge imposed for the movement of passengers by a for-profit railroad that operates as a common carrier of freight. Conditions are that the railroad is under jurisdiction of the United States Surface Transportation Board, the freight constitutes a majority of the movement handled by the railroad measured by both income and volume, and the for-profit railroad transports more than 20,000 revenue carloads annually.

Resident parking

A new ordinance, which council also authorized its solicitor to draft, will create a program that will prohibit non-borough residents from parking in any non-kiosk spaces Friday-Sunday from May 15-Dec. 31 each year.

The move, council said, is aimed at keeping spaces in front of homes in residential neighborhoods from being parked up by tourists. Residents would get a permit, at no cost, to hang in their vehicle.

“We hear it from the residents in the first block of Center Avenue,” Schatz said. “We hear it from residents on the east side of town. They can’t park near their homes and it’s getting worse every year. On the east side, it was up to about Sixth Street last year.”