Think the city of Vancouver should crack down on parking scofflaws?
You can share your opinion on a city questionnaire aimed at determining whether Vancouver needs a boot-and-tow program for repeat parking offenders with unpaid tickets.
The two-question survey asks respondents to indicate the degree to which the following parking issues are a problem downtown: Vehicles parked where they shouldn’t be, no apparent consequences for repeat offenders, and no available parking spaces in key locations because vehicles stay too long.
The survey then asks whether respondents would support an ordinance change to allow the use of vehicle immobilization (a tire “boot”) to address the problems.
Vancouver’s Parking Services department will present the survey results to the city Parking Advisory Committee on Nov. 17 along with a report detailing how other cities’ boot-and-tow programs work, such as those in Olympia, Seattle and Spokane, Parking Services Manager Mike Merrill said Friday. The parking committee will make a recommendation to the city council at some point after that, he said.
The survey follows the revelation this summer that a single vehicle in Vancouver — a 2004 Chevy Avalanche pickup — racked up 233 parking tickets and more than $8,000 in fines in 2014. The registered owner of the Avalanche lives in Portland, according to the Oregon Department of Transportation. So far this year, the vehicle been ticketed 254 times, for nearly $6,000 in fines, according to the city.
The problem is, there’s nothing in Vancouver city code that provides the authority to tow the Chevy, which continues to park downtown. The city’s only recourse has been to direct its collections agency, Professional Credit Service, to take legal action against the Chevy’s owner, city staff said.
Although that driver comes out on top with the most tickets, several other individual drivers received 60 to 70 parking tickets in 2014. And many didn’t pay them.
Last year, about one in six of the 20,608 citations the city issued went unpaid and was sent to collections, amounting to $100,000 in delinquent fines. Three or more unpaid tickets are reported to the Washington State Department of Licensing, which can deny vehicle registration and suspend driver’s licenses for unpaid parking tickets. However, the Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles doesn’t take action against delinquent tickets, a DMV spokesman said in July.
Part of the city’s parking committee’s work will involve establishing a threshold for the number of tickets a driver could accrue before the city boots the tire, Merrill said. If drivers fail to pay their fines within a certain time period, their vehicles would be towed.
Ticket fines range from $8 (for incorrect display of payment receipt) to $450 (for parking in a space reserved for people with disabilities). Parking rules are intended to encourage parking turnover so business patrons have the most convenient parking spaces.