No one likes receiving a parking ticket. But after a rush of emotions – denial, anger, grief and perhaps a few choice words – most people pay the fine – typically $25 in Durango – and go about their day.
Most people.
About 2 percent of Durango’s suspected parking scofflaws appeal their tickets, in which a municipal judge reviews the citation and decides whether to void or uphold the violation. In some cases, the judge can uphold the citation but waive fines, said Wade Moore, parking operations manager.
“It’s still a violation regardless of the fine,” Moore said. “... The fact is, that person was guilty.”
Of the 25,853 parking citations issued last year in the city of Durango, 457 were contested, Moore said. That means fewer than 2% of drivers who received a parking ticket appealed the citation to a municipal judge.
It is hard to say if 2% is a high or low number of appeals compared with other municipalities, said Jason Glei, vice president of marketing and information technology for the National Parking Association.
The percentage likely fluctuates among municipalities based on the local economy, he said. Communities reliant on tourism may see fewer parking ticket appeals because it is a greater inconvenience for a visitor to fight a ticket than to pay the fine, Glei said.
Parking violations are notoriously difficult to fight, he added.
It is easy for parking officials to photograph a vehicle and license plate, showing how the vehicle is in violation and whose vehicle it is, Glei said. But judges can take into account a driver’s explanation, remorse and fallibility – possibly waiving a fine even though a parking violation almost certainly occurred, he said.
“There’s a human element there, as there is in everything, and I think (judges are) just being sensitive to that,” Glei said.
Durango Municipal Court did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
A record of the appeal is generally kept on file, thereby alerting judges to repeat offenders who may seek multiple appeals, Glei said.
“You can only make the same mistake so many times before you do something different,” he said.
So how do drivers appeal a parking ticket in Durango?
Moore said they must complete a one-page form that can be submitted in person or online to the Durango Transit Center, 250 W. Eighth St. Petitioners can explain why they dispute the violation and include supporting evidence, including photographs, he said.
Appeals are loaded into a digital queue for a municipal judge to review, which can take about two weeks to be completed, Moore said. Once decided, the city mails a letter to the individual who protested the citation notifying him or her of the judge’s decision.
Violations, regardless of whether a fine was issued, are kept as part of a record to inform future decisions about parking violation appeals, Moore said. For example, if someone has been found guilty of four parking violations, yet fines were waived on three of them, the municipal judge can consider the four previous violations when deciding what to do about the fifth violation.
If the citation is dismissed outright, the individual is not held accountable for the violation, Moore said. But when someone can’t prove he or she didn’t violate parking rules, that violation must be recorded, regardless of whether a fine was imposed, he said.
“We want to see what they paid and what they haven’t paid over time,” Moore said.
In 2018, the city of Durango budgeted revenues of $725,000 from parking fines, according to budget documents. The actual amount of money collected by the city in parking fines for 2018 was somewhere around $665,000, budget documents show. In 2017, the city nearly doubled parking fines in an effort to offset transit costs.
Glei warned against using parking fines as a source of revenue – it’s a bit short-sighted, he said.
“In the long run, by creating those repeat customers to city that are taking advantage of all the benefits in a city and the businesses in it, the tax base will go up,” Glei said.
bhauff@durangoherald.com
