Parking tickets are showing up more frequently this year on vehicles parked at "expired" parking meters in Butler, now that meter monitors again are employed by the city. The two meter monitors who were employed through December 2002 were laid off in response to the city's financial crunch - a bad move, due to the police department's limited staffing.

And, it is encouraging to see parking tickets showing up on the windshields of vehicles abusing the free-two-hours parking privilege on Main Street. Business owners and workers who abuse the Main Street free parking discourage potential store customers from stopping, especially people not familiar with the location of the tier garage, parking lots and side-street parking.

But despite the Butler parking-enforcement inroads that have been made since meter monitors returned to the city's streets this year, city and Butler Parking Authority officials ought to look into the feasibility of employing here a new tool that the city of Greensburg in Westmoreland County is scheduled to begin using today. It is a hand-held computer that will issue tickets, which will be printed on waterproof paper.

Not only will rain and snow not slow down ticketing of parking violators as much as they did under the traditional ticket system that Butler continues to use, but the computer will cut down on labor costs tied to entering ticket information into the city's computer. The Greensburg computer will store the information entered by the city's parking enforcement officer until it can be loaded onto the police computer system.

In Greensburg's case, it is estimated that the cost of the new system - a one-time cost of $11,633 - will pay for itself in the labor saved in the ticket-filing process. City workers whose time was consumed with the ticket-information chore will be able to devote their time to other work.

Butler officials should ask the city's legislators to explore whether any grant money is available for such a purchase. The purchase would be a good investment for the authority.

However, helping to raise money for the hand-held computers could be a worthy project for a school group or community organization.

Keeping the city's parking enforcement operable in wet weather as well as dry conditions will benefit not only the city's coffers, but presumably the sales ledgers of Main Street merchants by helping to open up parking spaces needed by people entering the city. Vehicle owners won't be able to assume that wet weather means a "free ride."

In the not-too-distant future, Butler city leaders should get in touch with Greensburg officials to ascertain how the new system is working. But even before doing that, local officials can begin gathering information about the computer to familiarize themselves with it.

Streamlining parking enforcement makes sense, regardless of the weather.

- J.R.K.