I was curious to hear from someone at the Mystic Arts Center, about the success - or failure - of their new automated parking lot system, after getting a copy of a petition protesting the new procedures at the lot.

The many pages of the petition, which, when you put them together, have about as much heft as the Mystic phone book, list more than 725 signatures in all, many from owners, employees and customers of downtown Mystic businesses.

Most of the petition entries are scribbled names and addresses and references to downtown stores, but some people added comments, too.

"Disgusting," one signer wrote next to her name. "Out of town resident … will keep us away."

Alas, no one from the Arts Center agreed to come to the phone to answer questions when I inquired about their response to the petition.

Instead, a public relations executive for the center sent me an email referring me to a letter on their website, which explains why they instituted the system, which requires parkers to swipe a credit card to enter the lot, the only large public lot available in Mystic.

They kept the parking rate the same, at $3 an hour, but doubled the cost of vouchers businesses buy to give customers.

Evidently, Christine Grady, president of the arts center board, who met with me back in August, when I first reported on merchants' complaints about the new parking system, considers the matter closed.

"We made a business decision," she told me then. "You move forward. There is no going back."

In addition to a reaction to the petition, I also wanted to ask someone from the arts center last week how the new system is working out. People in town say the lot is emptier than it's been in years. They also say the streets are more crowded with parked cars.

"I've never seen Mystic so densely parked," said Bruce Carpenter, the chief architect of the petition against the changes at the lot.

Carpenter has owned and operated the Green Marble Coffee House for the last 20 years. He said his business declined 6 percent from the beginning of August to Aug. 27, before Irene hit, even though it was up more than 5 percent between January and July, compared to the same period last year.

He provided similar and specific numbers from four other businesses near his. He said business owners will tell you the same thing all up and down West Main Street.

"With the construction on West Main, half the street parking is gone," Carpenter wrote in an open letter to Mystic merchants earlier this month. "Where do people park? The flow of visitors to Mystic is way down ... ."

Arts center officials originally announced that they would be eliminating the attendants in the parking lot booths with the new automated system, another gripe of merchants who say the attendants give the town a friendlier face because tourists can ask them questions.

The center also said the gates would stay down 24 hours a day once the new system requiring a credit card swipe is in place.

So far, though, the attendants have been retained and the gates have been going up at night like they always did.

I would ask why, if someone from the arts center called me back.

The suggestion, though, is that problems have slowed the implementation of the system. Or maybe there is some contemplation that the merchants have a point, that there could be some going back after all.

The nonprofit Mystic Arts Center has been a positive force in Mystic for dozens of years, and it would be a shame if the changes that have been implemented to make the parking lot more profitable would harm its fine reputation with the community. But the current standoff is worrisome.

"Greed" and "arrogance" are the buzz words in town when the arts center is mentioned.

I would say it is time for some grown-ups in the organization to stand up and work to resolve this public relations debacle.

A petition with more than 725 names should certainly get their attention, even if no one wants to talk about it.

This is the opinion of David Collins.