Vernon Kindness Meters Still Kind

The City of Vernon is taking a look at how to increase the use of Kindness Meters.

They are being used, but not quite as much as when first introduced.

The city’s Manager of Protective Services, Clint Kanester, says the meters might not be in people’s minds as much.

“Panhandling has fairly significantly dropped off so we`re not experiencing the same kind of high levels that we were at the time we put the kindness meters in place.“

Clint Kanester, says the city is looking at whether some type of electronic donation is possible.

“We talked with Pay-By-Phone to see if they might be able to do something for us to offer up some other ways for people to donate like five bucks rather bring down you know five dollars worth of dimes and put it in the meter.

Pay-By-Phone though said that wasn’t possible.

He says there are still no plans to put the meters into areas other than the downtown.

`Certainly, there`s other areas but they`re also maybe not as acceptable or they`re on private property where we`d have to get the cooperation of the mall or the strip mall.

Last year, the Kindness Meters brought in $1863.82.

So far, the city has received $558.69 for 2017.