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Parish priest dec. Dr. Romualdas Zdanys claims that the city budget would not suffer too much from that, but the mass participants would avoid additional concerns.
The practice of exempting believers from church parking fees during services is, according to the clergyman, common in many European countries.
R. Zdanys claims that she did not realize whether believers would have started visiting God’s house less often after taxing car parking at the church during the week. However, the parish priest was comforted by many parishioners due to the inconvenience. Therefore, the church itself decided to submit a request to the municipality of Panevėžys that the car parking fee at the house of prayer is not charged from the eighth to the ninth morning, when morning services take place.
“It would be difficult to tell at a glance if this has caused a decline in believers in the morning. Not only in our city, parking spaces are paid at the church, but when I had to travel through Europe, in many countries I saw that in the parking lots installed next to churches and taxed, there was a sign that parking was free during religious rites, ”said R. Zdanys.
The price of oblivion
According to the pastor, a specific group of believers usually meets for morning services, usually at that time Mass is commanded after the death of a loved one. And they last about 45 minutes. Although the one-hour parking lot costs 30 euro cents, the believers, according to the clergyman, have the disadvantage of paying for a car that is left in the parking lot. Suffering people sometimes even forget to do so, because when they come to services both at night and on weekends, parking at the church is free.
“I don’t find it very nice when people come to the funeral and still have to pay for parking. After all, believers come to church not to entertain, to deal with business matters, but to accompany a loved one on the last trip. If I had only come to the marriage ceremony, it is possible that I would not have even presented myself to the municipality of Panevėžys with such a request ”, considers R. Zdanys.
The parish priest and himself have repeatedly received the remorse of the faithful for having to pay to park the car in the house of prayer only during the morning services. Depressed by the pain of loss, people sometimes forget to do so not out of ill will, but only because their thoughts are elsewhere at the time. Such forgetfulness pays after painfully.
“The whole area around the church is taxed. Believers who want to go to the priest to organize a funeral, wedding, baptism or other church business are forced to pay for parking, although I have seen in many places that at least a couple of tax-free seats are left for the church. I no longer dare to make such a proposal to our government. But I hope that at least during the morning services I don’t have to pay for parking, ”hopes R. Zdanys.
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European practice
The pastor doubts that the people of Panevėžys, who do not take care of the house of prayer, will maliciously take advantage of such an exception, and the city’s budget would hardly be affected as a result of a tax-free hour.
“It just came to our attention then, at least in Italy and Poland, where I had to visit. I do not believe that allowing not to pay that hour of mass causes significant losses to the city budget, ”said R. Zdanys.
According to him, the only advantage of the toll parking was that access to the church was finally arranged, because until then there were such pits that even the drivers of the wheels went out into the street. On the other hand, although it is an urban area and the corresponding services would be required to take care of order, at least on weekends, the church’s own servers avoid all access to the house of prayer, including the same parking lots. I pay, and they pick up the trash. And after the nocturnal fury of the young, there are not so few left.
“You don’t want people to come to church on Sunday to see trash and bottles thrown at your entrances. After all, most people don’t really think the city doesn’t manage, the first thing you think about is that the pastor is so negligent that he cannot even collect bottles. And as he will explain, behind the fence there is no longer an area belonging to the church. But we do not get rid of those works, we just want the Municipality to help us, and we – for them, as in any family or community ”, compared R. Zdanys.
Sad sounds
If the City Council satisfies the church’s request, in the parking lot on M. Tiškevičiaus street near the Panevėžys Nursing and Support Treatment Hospital and Smėlynės str. a St. Jokūbo g. Parking will be charged on weekdays no longer from eight in the morning like now, but from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. It is estimated that this would require minimal resources, such as the replacement of additional road signs that indicate the period of validity of the local toll and reprogramming of timers.
According to Ina Urbonavičienė, a specialist from the City’s Municipal Infrastructure Department, such a request from the church is partially understandable, and financially, the city’s treasury will not suffer much as a result.
The specialist agrees that the exemption granted at the request of said church may cause dissatisfaction among some residents of Panevėžys, why believers who attend morning services will not pay for parking and those who visit the medical institution for only one hour will be forced to scratch 30 cents.
“We understand that there may be resentment about why those who come to Mass in the morning do not have to pay and the polyclinic already does. After all, we go to the mass grief and to the medical institution with a sad grief, especially when the diagnosis is not gratifying. But the purpose of charging for parking places near medical institutions and in the city center is not to raise as much money as possible in the budget, but to solve the problem of the lack of such places, ”explained I. Urbonavičienė .
Freed the fields
Municipality representatives claim that by charging for parking spaces near medical institutions, as well as in the city center, those who parked here all day were forced to look for other places or choose alternative ways to get to work.
“When building employees or people living around the car park all day near the treatment facilities or the center, there are no parking spaces for patients or clients. So the main streets get stuck very quickly, their conductivity decreases, sometimes people are forced to turn some wheels until they find a place to park a car. And that does not improve the ecology, it increases the pollution of the city. The purpose of the parking spaces is not money, but a means to ensure that the person who arrives always finds a place for a car, ”said I. Urbonavičienė.
The specialist could not reveal how much money was raised by the taxed places, but said that half of this amount is spent on tax administration, maintenance of payment machines, and the other half goes back to the city budget and is used to improve the infrastructure of the city.
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