The Mystic Arts Center, in its 2010 tax return, lists as one of its three principal program accomplishments, in addition to education outreach and exhibiting art works, the use of its parking lots to support the community.

"To lessen the burden of the town of Groton by allowing its parking facilities to be used to support community activities and economic development," is how the center describes this particular mission, in support of its tax-free status.

And yet it is the center's new attempts to capture more business revenue from the parking lot, the only major downtown lot in Mystic, that has enraged many in the community.

The Mystic parking lots wars have erupted.

"I was stunned by the level of vitriol," one arts center official told me this week, in discussing the criticism of a new administration system for the lot that the center began implementing last week.

"The animosity was shocking," the arts center official said.

Indeed, you don't have to wander far from the tranquil riverside grounds of the arts center to find people - especially downtown merchants - who are very angry with the center, not only with the changes made at the lot but with the fact they were set in motion without consulting people in the community.

"With one decision you have harmed every business in Mystic, and created a storm of anger from the Mystic community," Bruce Carpenter, owner of the Green Marble Coffee House, wrote in an open letter to the center's Board of Directors, which he has posted in his shop window.

Other merchants I talked to said things barely printable. One called the center a for-profit nonprofit. Another called it greedy. Most were careful to distinguish between center employees, whom they know and see around town, and the decision makers on the center's board.

The change that has created such a stir is a new payment system for the lot that requires parkers to swipe a Visa or MasterCard to make the entry gate swing open. When they leave, the transaction for their $3-an-hour stay is calculated and their card is charged after they swipe it again.

The new system will be in effect 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The four people who used to be attendants in a booth at the entrance and exit to the lot are being reassigned or let go.

The hourly parking rate is the same but the vouchers that the center sells to merchants to give to customers to reimburse them for parking have doubled in price, from $1 an hour to $2 for a one-hour voucher.

The merchants have a lot of complaints about all this, which they say moves Mystic away from a homey small-town community spirit, in which visitors are greeted by a person in a booth who can answer questions. Also, they say, locals got used to zipping in and out of the lot early and late in the day, when the gates are up.

Their principal objection, though, seems to be that tourists aren't going to use the lot, either because they are reluctant to randomly swipe a credit card or because they don't have one.

I've heard reports from Mystic merchants of declines in business of 20 to 30 percent already, given the empty spaces in the lot.

Critics also say cars have been backing unsafely out onto Main Street and Water Street, after drivers get down the parking lot driveway and discover they have to swipe a credit card.

Arts center officials deny there is less use of the lot since the new system started. But they also said they can't provide any numbers of usage because of glitches in operating the new system.

The other complaints about the new system come from owners of Steamboat Wharf condominiums, who need to get past the arts center parking lot gates to get home, since their garages face the lot. Their relatives and guests now have to swipe a credit card to visit.

Marshall Yudin, president of the condominium association's board of directors, told me the system is unacceptable. His grandchildren, who visit often, don't even have credit cards.

He said the association has hired a lawyer to review the matter.

Like many of the merchants, Yudin complained that the association was never consulted about the changes before they were decided on.

"The board (of the center) has an arrogance about it," Yudin said, in comments typical of what I heard around town.

Christine Grady, president of the arts center board, told me that the changes were a business decision made to increase revenues as the center struggles through the recession. She said some accommodation may be in the works for condo owners, which she couldn't describe, and other arrangements may be considered, like asking for volunteers to man the booth and help tourists.

But she also made it clear no rescission will be contemplated, no matter how much vitriol surfaces. The new automated system cost about $100,000, she said.

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

As for the lack of consulting with the community, Grady said other downtown businesses don't consult with others when they make changes. She made a lot of references to the decisions as being business based.

In fact, because the parking lot is run as a business, it is, unlike the rest of the center's riverfront property, on the town's tax rolls. However, the center entered into an agreement with the town when it built public restrooms on the arts center property, so that the parking lot taxes, now about $10,000, are waived as rent for the bathroom building land.

The center also leases spaces in the lot - some merchants complain the total is more than the actual physical number of spaces in the lot - to businesses that need to prove parking availability for zoning regulations.

The center reported $154,245 in parking lot revenue on its 2010 tax return. But center officials said 40 percent of that was paid out to the owners of the Steamboat Inn, who have a 99-year lease on the lower end of the lot, which is actually owned by the condominium association.

The inn owners have an agreement that ceded management of the lot to the center.

Center officials said the parking lot provides about one fifth of its income and they hope to raise that to about a quarter with the new system.

Grady said she thinks a lot of the controversy has arisen because people don't like change. She also thinks the center has become a "convenient target" of merchants struggling through the recession and dealing with construction turmoil downtown.

The center, by providing commercial parking over the years, has helped the town grow, she said. Its grounds are also open to the pubic.

"The only way to make this work," she said about the new changes at the parking lot, "is to work together."

This is the opinion of David Collins