ATLANTA PARKING ENFORCEMENT BATTLE COMES TO COUNCIL
Atlanta\'s downtown parking wars could come to a head on Wednesday.
A City Council committee is scheduled to hear a proposal to temporarily stop collecting parking tickets and booting vehicles in the city.
Councilman Kwanza Hall introduced a resolution last week to impose a one-month moratorium on the program. Hall, whose district includes downtown, has been flooded with complaints that the private company the city hired to run the program is overly aggressive and wrongly ticketing motorists.
"I just felt like if we could have a little bit of time to get everybody on the same page, we could work out some of the kinks," said Hall, who estimated his office has received several hundred phone calls about the issue.
The city\'s Public Works Department, which oversees parking enforcement, says it is trying to address concerns about the program.
"We are increasing our efforts to ensure that the public is well informed about the city’s efforts," the department said in a statement to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Hall said he has met with the privately run program, ParkAtlanta, and city officials several times in recent months, but "every time we solve one issue, a new problem kept popping up."
Paul Luna, who opened a restaurant in downtown Atlanta earlier this year, says he\'s received parking tickets after enforcement hours. Luna, who said he\'s lost business because of the program, protested outside City Hall last week.
Late last year the city outsourced its parking enforcement to Milwaukee-based Duncan Solutions, which operates ParkAtlanta. The seven-year contract calls for the company to pay the city $5.5 million a year to manage enforcement and booting of vehicles. City officials noted Atlanta had collected about $2.1 million the prior two years from parking tickets.
Atlanta also began the process of nearly tripling the number of parking meters in the city from 900 to 2,500. Nearly all of the meters are located downtown or in Midtown. In January, a new policy took effect allowing the city to boot illegally parked cars if they have three or more parking tickets.
But the city didn\'t communicate the changes well, Hall says.
Some question whether ParkAtlanta can legally cite motorists. Luna noted the parking tickets have an area for the name of the officer.
"They\'re not officers," he said.
Hall and City Solicitor Raines Carter said they are reviewing whether there are any legal problems with the program. Nearly 90 percent of the 533 parking cases filed with the city\'s court system since Jan. 3 are still pending, Carter said, and some disputed tickets will be reviewed by a judge next week.
Meanwhile, the city is dealing with another potential headache. A group of Atlanta employees who enforced parking regulations and were laid off in 2008 sued the city to get their jobs back. The case is in the courts.
ATLANTA PARKING PATROL A PAIN FOR SOME MOTORISTS
Since January, many Atlanta residents feel like they\'re experiencing their own version of the television show "Parking Wars."
Katie Anderson said she was ticketed by the city for illegal parking near First United Methodist Church in downtown Atlanta although the "No Parking" signs hadn\'t arrived yet.
Midtown resident Gabriel Staples said some of his neighbors have been ticketed for parking on the street overnight. His girlfriend recently received a $25 ticket for parking more than one hour in front of his home. Staples says she was not there that long.
Councilman Kwanza Hall says he\'s received a barrage of telephone calls and e-mails from citizens complaining about what he described as "Draconian" parking enforcement, such as being ticketed twice for parking in the same spot.
"We\'re going to have to fix this," said Hall, whose council district includes downtown Atlanta and several neighborhoods.
Late last year the city contracted with Milwaukee-based Duncan Solutions to operate Atlanta\'s parking program, now called PARKatlanta. The seven-year contract, negotiated by the administration of former Mayor Shirley Franklin, calls for Duncan to pay the city $5.5 million a year to manage parking meter collections, right-of-way enforcement, parking citation processing, booting and towing. PARKatlanta has primarily focused its work downtown and in some surrounding neighborhoods.
Some residents complain the annual fee to the city has made the enforcement crew -- most of whom drive in white, golf cart-size vehicles -- overly aggressive. City officials say since PARKatlanta has taken over, they have seen improved compliance by motorists of parking rules.
Most local governments have their own employees manage parking enforcement. Atlanta laid off its parking enforcement staff in 2008 during one round of budget cuts. Many of those workers sued the city to get their jobs back, cases that are still in the courts.
Atlanta\'s Public Works Department oversees the program\'s management. Overall, the program is working well, department spokeswoman Valerie Bell-Smith said in an e-mail to the AJC last month.
In the next few months the city plans to remove some coins-only parking meters and begin installing about 200 multi-space parking meters that accept coins, bills and credit cards. The city is offering residents in some high-volume neighborhoods the option of getting permits to park their vehicles on the street without getting ticketed. Residents in parts of nine neighborhoods can pay $12 a year for a permit to park on the street, according to PARKatlanta\'s Web site.
Most parking fines are $25, but they double if they\'re not paid within two weeks.
Since November, PARKatlanta has collected about $900,000 in delinquent parking citations, Bell-Smith said. In January, new rules took effect in Atlanta that allow the city to tow a vehicle if it has three or more outstanding parking tickets.
Some big cities, like Philadelphia, have programs where people can pay $35 for the first year to park in residential neighborhoods and $20 each year afterward.
Since 2000, Atlanta has been one of the nation\'s fastest-growing big cities, and some PARKatlanta critics say certain elements of the effort, particularly 24-hour enforcement, will slow that growth.
"Atlanta is still trying to get people (to move into the city)," said downtown resident Dallas Miller. "In theory, they\'re getting ahead of themselves (with such enforcement)."
Bell-Smith said there are commercial businesses in some neighborhoods with metered parking that require the city to enforce 24-hour parking. The city will work with residents to address their concerns with ideas such as residential permits, she said. Hall, the councilman, said the city needs to look at the policy in some areas where only a handful of residents park at night.
"Public Works and ParkAtlanta are actively working with organized neighborhood groups as well as the Atlanta City Council officials to address concerns," Bell-Smith said in her e-mail. |
