The town is looking into the feasibility of upgrading the payment system at the Mancos Water Dock, after recent vocal complaints from users about the machine’s susceptibility to jams.
The dock, at East Montezuma and South Main streets, is coin-operated and despite posted signage instructing users on the proper coin type and denomination, everything from Canadian quarters to cardboard has been inserted into the fickle coin slot.
“We get complaints once or twice a month,” Town Administrator Andrea Phillips said at the Sept. 23 town board meeting. “We’ve gotten some pretty vocal complaints recently, and requests that we look into different technology.”
Phillips noted that the town provides the water dock as an ancillary service to residents and isn’t required by law to operate one.
Different options other nearby municipalities use are quarters only, card readers where the cards are activated and loaded online, and coin-and-cash operated with no return coin-slot (exact change only).
The city of Durango in 2013 spent $10,140 upgrading its card reader technology.
Mancos had card reader technology in 2004, but eventually nixed the system because it wasn’t dependable, said public works director Robin Schmittel.
While some trustees seemed on the fence about transitioning into a card-only system as it could frustrate regular users who are accustomed to coins, others favored the idea of having both options.
“Maybe we can just look at a better machine that will reject bad coins,” said Mancos Mayor Rachael Simbeck.