January 8th, 2025 by WCBC Radio

The Cumberland Mayor and City Council decided to rework the parking ordinance for Baltimore Street for another two weeks during last night’s Open Work Session.  Several Cumberland residents and business owners further expressed their concern regarding the parking changes in the Public Meeting.  Brian Bowers, the owner of Hobbies and Toys, said the parking fees may negatively affect the businesses on Baltimore Street after the positive effect its reconstruction has made…

“We did a little study and our store is up over 200% from two years ago, pre-construction stage. I think the parking fees has the potential to offset all the positivity that is going on.”

Mayor Ray Morriss said he and the council want the solution to benefit Baltimore Street while taking care of the problem of spaces being monopolized at the same time…

“We’re like you we don’t want to do anything that we believe would hurt the downtown businesses.  That is the last thing we would do.  But we also look at it and obviously right now it is quite frankly unmanageable and something is going to have to be done.”