The mayor and trustees fielded numerous comments about a new parking plan during Monday night’s board meeting.

Last week the police committee decided to recommend a paid parking plan to the board of trustees and ask for a public hearing on the local law. The plan, developed largely by trustee Lynne Mebust, involves a permit which will be available to residents and non-residents and will allow them to park in paid parking areas at no charge.

Fire chief Jim Tallman said he has no problem with paid parking in Doubleday Field, but was ``totally opposed’’ to paid permit parking on Main Street.

He said he feared business owners would purchase the $10 permits for their employees and residents would have an even harder time finding a place to park.

Tallman said he feared frustrated residents would simply find another place to shop.

Paul Clark asked why, as a village resident, he had to pay for a permit.

``I don’t think you guys are thinking it through long term,’’ he said.

Police committee chairman Paul Kuhn explained that the village is giving away all its best parking downtown.

``We want people to park out in the lots,’’ he said.

Mebust also explained that state law does not allow for treating residents differently than non-residents. If the parking permits were free to village residents, they would also have to be free to non-residents.

Clark responded that the parking problem is not here year-around.

``It’s a 100-day-a-year problem. You live here and you deal with it. What’s the big deal if we’ve got a few tourists walking up and down Main Street? It’s not that big a deal,’’ said Clark.

Trustee Jeff Katz said the village needs to find another way to increase revenue. He said that preliminary indications point to as much as $400,000 to $600,000 in new revenue could be generated through paid parking.

``We’re trying to run the village like a business. We have limited places to get revenues,’’ Mayor Carol Waller said.

The board scheduled a public hearing on the paid parking plan for next month’s meeting on Oct. 15 at 8:30 p.m.

Trustees also plan to hold two informational meetings about the plan to listen to residents’ comments, concerns and suggestions and answer questions. The meetings will be held on Thursday, Sept. 27 and Tuesday, Oct. 2.

Both meetings will be held in the second floor courtroom in the county courthouse at 7:30 p.m.

Copies are available from the clerk’s office. Any changes to the law must be made no later than Oct. 5 so there is sufficient time to meet legal requirements and allow residents to obtain a copy of the final version and review it before the public hearing later in the month.