Better pay any unpaid parking tickets soon.
Durango’s Parking Division has recommended changing its policy on unpaid parking tickets. Currently, the city allows vehicles to be booted after three parking tickets that are more than 20 days old, but that may soon change.
Roy Petersen, city operations director, suggested Tuesday to the Durango City Council to allow the city to boot vehicles after only one unpaid ticket.
Petersen said current policy is confusing and difficult to manage. If the vehicle is registered to one person and driven primarily by someone else, the owner may not get notified about outstanding parking tickets and could be triple fined. Tickets start at $12 and fines rise to $24 after seven days and $48 after 30 days. The city will release an impounded car after all citations are paid, plus a $50 boot fee.
“It was very difficult and unfair to the folks who didn’t drive that particular vehicle to get a notice one day that says you have three citations that have now doubled twice plus a boot fee,” Petersen said. “Because if you happen to get one citation a month over the summer, sometime in the middle of winter, you get this notice that you got three overdue citations. It’s hard to manage, and it’s not very good customer service.”
Instead of a notice going out maybe months later, Petersen said the parking division would send a notice out eight days after the ticket’s issuance if it is still unpaid. That would give vehicle owners more timely notice that they owe a fine. The division also will notice owners on the 28th day after a ticket’s issuance that their car is going on the boot list.
“There’s probably some locals that won’t necessarily appreciate that, but those folks that get that notice with three citations and haven’t been aware that their vehicle has been getting parking tickets – we get some phone calls, and I don’t blame them,” Petersen said.
Some councilors agreed the proposed change would be more helpful.
“I think that is a great idea for customer service to send them a notification,” Councilor Christina Rinderle said.
Mayor Sweetie Marbury said it was good to give the vehicle owner multiple opportunities to pay tickets and provide penalties if they don’t.
“I think we talk about that in schools,” she said. “There are consequences for your choices.”
It was unclear when the proposed new policy would go into effect. Petersen said there would be amnesty for those who got a ticket in 2013 and didn’t get notified if they call or go to the parking office.
Tickets can be paid at the Durango Intermodal Transit Center on Eighth Street, the Post Office on West Eighth Avenue, Durango Public Library on East Third Avenue or at www.durangogov.org.
smueller@durangoherald.com
