Frequent flyers who park at the county-city parking lot just north of the Hall of Justice and City Hall may have caught themselves wondering as they wait in the queue to leave if the "pay here" machine, in fact, takes money.
After all, it's not uncommon to spot someone struggling to feed a $5 bill into the machine, presumably because he or she has forgotten to grab a ticket to get out of the lot at 10th and K streets free.
Or even to see someone walking up and giving a driver a spare ticket to get out free.
Kerin Peterson, director of county-city facilities and properties, assures the Journal Star, yes, it does take cash.
"Sometimes it gets finicky about the bills," she said.
Peterson said it might be a bit more difficult when it's rainy, for instance. That goes for the free tickets, too. So if it's raining in the morning they'll keep the wooden exit gate up, she said.
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And the machine that takes tickets sometimes locks out after three attempts.
But it's not exactly a money-making endeavor. And it wasn't intended to be, Peterson said.
She said the few hundred dollars they take to the bank a year ends up back into the machine in the form of quarters in case someone pays with a $10.
On the other end of things, Peterson said, they budget about $4,300 for repairs and service each year to the machines and the gate arm and for the cream-colored tickets that are doled out at offices.
A couple of maintenance staff members take care of the wooden arm when someone decides just to drive through it, which happens two or three times a year, she said.
Then there's the person (she doesn't know who) who every so often for years has been taking the arm off with tools and leaving it, intact, in the grass.
Asked if there's ever been a discussion about just leaving the lot open during the day, Peterson said the problem is that people might leave their cars there overnight and end up taking up spots needed by people going to county and city offices.
She said the lot is designed to be a free place for the public to park when they need to go to the courthouse or police station or other city and county offices.
The tickets, she said, are a way to ensure spaces are there for those who need them and not taken by people going to other nearby businesses and just avoiding parking meters.
Peterson said it's not a perfect system, but they do watch the lot.
And they don't get many calls with complaints about the parking lot, she said, but they do handle calls when the machine is jammed. And staff try to get there within minutes in an effort to prevent long lines for people trying to leave.
They want to keep traffic flow going, Peterson said. Which is why they leave the arm up when they know they have big groups of potential jurors showing up.
"Property management is in the business of rectifying problems, not creating new ones," she said.
Lancaster County Sheriff Terry Wagner said originally each agency was going to be assessed an amount for their public participation, based on where people picked up their free-parking tickets. But that never happened.
The information desk at the County-City building hands them out, and so do the staff at the front door security checkpoint at the Hall of Justice.
"We want to make it easy," Peterson said.