The WHYY Newsworks story...

WHYY's Newsworks has a story on the Wilmington Parking ticket issues, here's an excerpt:

"Every city in the country has multiple sources of revenue, as does our city, parking being just one of about 30 sources." said Mayor Baker's Chief of Staff Bill Montgomery. "Do we track every revenue source and have some benchmarks for them, sure... it is simply not a quota."

Still, Montgomery says the city is already taking steps to address some of the grievances aired on Grant's blog and expressed through the PSA's. Montgomery says, for starters, city staffers are walking every block in the downtown area looking for confusing or missing signs. Additionally, he says Finance Department staff are working on a parking Frequently Asked Questions section for the city's website and facebook page. Simultaneously, Montgomery says the Civil Appeals Division is reviewing the appeals process.

Click Here for the complete story (with sound).

Now we know what the quota is...

From the News Journal article about Mayor Baker's ticket:

In 2010, ticket writers were told to step up enforcement. The goal then was to write 25 tickets a day, but some were writing only one or two, Wilmington officials said at the time. Not meeting the daily goal was costing the financially strapped city about $3 million a year, saidFinance Director James Jones, who said ticket writers should issue 30 or more tickets a day.


Read the complete story here

From the News Journal:

Baker's parking ticket dismissed after appeal

Wilmington Mayor James M. Baker was ticketed last month while parked in front of his apartment in the 700 block of N. Harrison St. That's a part of town requiring residents to have parking stickers on their vehicles to park in the same spot for more than two hours.

Baker, who was in a borrowed car because his city-issued vehicle was in the shop, was cited for having been parked in the spot more than two hours. The borrowed car did not have a residential parking sticker.

The ticket was dismissed when Baker protested that he was not in the spot for that long.

Read the complete story here.

Interesting insights

The following is from Ray - many thanks for compiling all of the information from the Wilmington City budgets!

Looking back over the years, it’s amazing how they decided that parking tickets are the ideal way to finance the city.   Also interesting how they transferred ticketing in 2011 from the police dept to the finance dept to “improve morale”.    Like it’s more exciting to work in the finance dept than the police dept??

But that tells us they have 24 people (with salaries of $1.42 million) enforcing tickets?   Are they in the general fund for the finance dept?   I don’t see a breakdown other than “General” and “Water/Sewer”.

2006 Budget:

Continued high attrition among the ranks of the Parking Regulation Enforcement Officers (PREO’s), along with the policy of assigning non-emergency public safety related tasks to the PREO’s in order to free up more police officers for street patrol, has reduced the volume of ticket writing to the point that FY 2005 revenues are projected to be $935,000 below budget.  There is no indication that this policy will be discontinued in the short-run, and thus, we project $1.5 million in Parking Ticket revenue for FY 2006.

2007 Budget:

Two additional Parking Regulation Enforcement Officers (PREO’s) and a Scofflaw Enforcer are being added at a cost of $134,514.  This additional staffing is part of a multipronged approach to increase enforcement in the neighborhoods, as well as the business district.

Parking Tickets/Booting Up   $1,900,000 to $3,400,000

Parking Tickets/Booting

With additional staffing and a multi-pronged approach to increasing enforcement and collection (as part of the implementation of the Finance department’s “Plan for Change”), Parking Tickets revenue is forecast to rebound sharply from the decline of recent years. Already, the FY 2006 second quarter shows an increase of $300,000.  With an additional $500,000 forecast as a result of the more focused approach, parking ticket revenue is projected to increase $800,000, to a new total of $2.3 million in FY 2007.

To further enhance scofflaw enforcement and collections, the City will contract with a private vendor to implement the PayLock delinquency abatement system.  Using mobile licence plate recognition cameras and software, along with self-releasing computerized vehicle boots, it is projected that the number of scofflaw vehicles found and booted will increase from a few hundred per year to over 5,000. The additional revenue from implementing this program is conservatively

estimated at $1.1 million, greatly exceeding the cost of $581,250.

2008 Budget:

Support operations in the Police Department are also being bolstered.  Two new specialized civilian positions have been approved for FY 2008: a Bilingual Victims Case Coordinator and an Information Input Specialist.  The cost of these positions is $75,695 and $57,957 respectively. As part of the multi-pronged approach to increase enforcement in the neighborhoods, as well as the business district, an additional Parking Regulation Enforcement Officer (PREO) is being added at a cost of $48,774.  Lastly, a new Administrative Clerk I position to perform clerical duties in the Patrol Division added $52,413 to the Budget.

FINES consists of Parking Tickets/Booting Fines and Criminal/Traffic Fines

With additional staffing and a multi-pronged approach to increasing enforcement and collection (as part of the Finance Department’s Plan for Change), Parking Tickets/Booting revenue is forecast to climb beyond the increase projected for FY 2007. To further enhance scofflaw enforcement and collections, the City

contracted last year with a private vendor to implement the PayLock delinquency abatement system.  Using mobile licence plate recognition cameras and software, along with self-releasing computerized vehicle boots, the number of scofflaw vehicles found and booted has increased dramatically.  With an additional $600,000 forecast as a result of a more focused approach that includes better enforcement in residential neighborhoods, Parking Ticket/Booting revenue is projected to increase to $4 million in FY 2008. The use of the PayLock system will also be extended to bolster the payment rate of red-light violations captured on film, increasing Criminal/Traffic revenue by $375,000, to a new total of $1.2 million

2009 Budget:

Parking Tickets/Booting revenue is forecast to stay at the FY 2008 budgeted level.  Revenues in this category were pulled down $500,000 in the FY 2008 First Quarter projection, when a sharp decline in ticket writing and booting was observed.  Problems with vacancies and other personnel management issues are expected to be resolved before the end of this fiscal year, giving confidence that the $4 million level can be reached in FY 2009

2010 Budget:

Parking Tickets/Booting Fines revenue is forecast to increase by $2.2 million above the FY 2009 budgeted level.  Revenues in this category will be enhanced by several factors: a second boot van added in the mid-FY 2009, a proposed $15 increase to parking citations, and projected boot van efficiency gains.

Licenses, Permits and Fees revenue is projected to be $4.4 million in FY 2010, about the same as the FY 2009 budget.  Business Licenses show a $300,000 increase above the FY 2009 Budget due to continued compliance audits and increased field monitoring. Fees are slated to rise by $400,000 due to a $0.50 per hour increase in Parking Meter rates throughout the City.  Unfortunately, the increase in Business Licenses and Fees are completely offset by a projected $705,000 decline in Permits, as building activity has slowed considerably.

2011 Budget:

To improve flagging productivity and morale, management of the parking ticket and scofflaw enforcement (booting) operations are being transferred from the Police Department to the Finance Department. As a result, the budgets for the twenty-four related positions ($1.42 million) and the supporting services and materials ($48,000) were moved from Police to Finance.

Parking Tickets/Booting Fines revenue is forecast to increase by $350,000  above the FY 2010 budgeted level or $2.35 million more than the FY 2010 2nd quarter projection.  Revenues in this category will be affected by two factors: a significant management change to the ticket-writing and booting operations by transferring oversight of these operations from Police to Finance, with an eye toward privatization; and the implementation of the vehicle registration hold program through the Delaware Motor Vehicle Division.  The management change is expected to bring the base revenue closer in line with the original FY 2010 Budget, while the registration hold program will add $750,000 above current levels

Licenses, Permits and Fees revenue is projected to be $4.1 million in FY 2011, or $250,000 below the FY 2010 Budget.  Business Licenses and Permits will remain stable at $1.6 million and $1.9 million respectively.  However, Fees, mostly comprised of parking meter revenue, have not been realized in the amount anticipated subsequent to the $.50 per hour increase in FY 2010.  As a result, the $250,000 shortfall projected for the current year has been carried over to FY 2011.

More experiences:

Submitted by J.P.:

You might be interested in what happened to me last summer.

I parked on the north side of 10th Street across Van Buren from Cool Spring Park. When I returned I had a ticket for parking in a block where street cleaning was scheduled.

There was no sign telling me that. The sign on the other side of 10th Street said no parking on Mondays. This was a Wednesday.

There are three utility pole on the north side of the block between Van Buren and Harrison. None had a sign. As far as I know, they still don't.

The nearest sign designating that side of the street for no parking on Wednesdays is midway between Harrison and Franklin, a block and a half from where I parked and not visible (let alone readable) from where I was.

The ticket said I could appeal to a review board. Figuring I had a sure thing, I did. I included a photo I took the next day with my car parked where it had been. The photo showed clearly that there was no warning sign on the pole immediately in front of my car.

Several weeks later, I received a letter denying my appeal.

Get this: The letter in bold-face type quoted two passages from the city ordinance. One said you can't park where they are going to sweep. Fair enough. The other said the city is required to post signs telling you that. That, of course, was the very point of my appeal -- no sign. That told me no one had actually considered my appeal if, indeed, anyone had read it.

Figuring you can't win fighting City Hall and not wanting to invest the time and cost to go to court, I paid the $40. 

Appeals, you gotta love them...

I received and paid for a legitimate parking ticket. A month later I get a notice saying that there was no payment included in what I sent in and asked for full payment.  So I researched and found that my original check had indeed been cashed by ‘city of Wilmington’ 2 days after I mailed it to them.

So I mailed them a copy of the check requesting it be cleared up.

I never receive any confirmation … but instead received a notice that I owe a $10 late fee because it had not been paid in time.

Of course I wrote back and explained that in fact the check had been received and cashed by them before the deadline… but their admin error made it appear otherwise, and I sent another copy of the check showing it was cashed before the deadline.

I haven’t heard anything back yet. 

JIM   PROVO

Can you make sense of this?

Seriously, there's four of us trying to figure this out right now - so I'm crowd sourcing:

Sec. 37-225. - Limited parking and prohibited parking generally.

(c)

Parking within any block, whether at the same location or not, for an aggregate period of time in excess of the time permitted by the department of public works shall be deemed a violation of this chapter; and any person removing a vehicle from any given place on any street, to which this section applies, before the expiration of the period authorized for such location and returning it to any location on either side of the same street within the same block before the end of the first hour beyond the posted limited parking time shall be considered as violating the provisions of this chapter. A conviction of a violation of this subsection shall be punishable by a fine in the amount of $40.00.