As part of its budget shortfall exercise, Rye City has privatized its parking fine process and raised parking ticket fine amounts significantly for 2011. The fine for failure to shovel snow after a storm has been quintupled to $50. Most fines have been raised between double to triple the 2010 amount.
The fines that have been increased are:
No Handicapped Permit from $65 to $150
Parking in Front of a Fire Hydrant from $35 to $150
Beach Area Parking from $35 to $75
Parking on the Street During the Snow Ordinance from $25 to $75
Parking in a Crosswalk from $25 to $75
Failure to shovel snow after a storm from $10 to $50
The parking fine system has been outsourced to Complus Data Solutions in Tarrytown. Both Parking Enforcement Officers and Rye Police Department Officers will issue tickets. The outsourcing will save the City about $65,000 in 2011 as compared to 2010, and about $20,000 in 2012 as compared to 2011, for total annual savings in 2013 of $85,000 as compared to 2010.
Full details about the privatization are available in Rye City's news release.
Everyone knows that the Parking Enforcement Officers only work 8 am to 4 pm Monday thru Friday.
Everyone knows that the Parking Enforcement Officers cover school crossings every day from 8 am to 9 am, 1130 am to 1230 pm and from 230 pm to 330 pm.
Everyone knows that the Parking Enforcement Officers get (2) 15 minute coffee breaks and a half hour lunch break every day.
Everyone knows that leaves the parking Enforcement Officers about three hours a day to enforce parking.
Everyone knows that the Rye cops morale is a the lowest point in history and don’t enforce the parking meters even in good times.
Well everyone that is except French, Pickup and the Rye City Council. Rather than fix the obvious problems with the enforcement they chose to punish the residents/shoppers with excessive fines.
And lets not forget that the 100% to 500% increase in fines puts more money into the pockets of Complus Data Services who I believe gets a percentage of the fines collected.
I’m confused — what is the obvious problem(s) and what is your solution?
Ted, Oh Ted, come out from behind your latest mask… Or is it really someone else trying to be creative? Could be, I suppose.
Raising the rates, at the recommendation of the local judiciary, seems “fine”, per se. However, the publicly stated reason for fines has been to improve compliance with local law and thereby public safety. Purely raising rates without a commensurate enforcement effort will have no net effect on improving public safety. That IS the ultimate aim of local government, is it not?
As an aside, today for at least 90 minutes a light colored car (NY Plates) was parked on Purchase street blocking the cross walk immediately adjacent to Rubys. For at least 30 minutes of this period, a police car was parked in front of this car. Independent of the apparent lack of a ticket being written (nothing visible on the windshield), did the officer say anything to the miscreant? Again, unclear. But this kind of obvious lack of enforcement underlines the need for action.
Let’s look at another case. Despite the reverse 911 calls reminding everyone of their responsibility to clear their sidewalks, how many went unshoveled? The county certainly didn’t clear the Old Post Road / North Street bridge sidewalk. Wonder if they’ll get a ticket? Then there’s the Locust sidewalk up to the Metro North Railroad bridge. A huge pile of snow was assembled there right next to the adjacent homeowner’s nicely cleaned walk. Wonder if Metro North or whomever is responsible for the mess was cited?
Publishing on a regular basis information about the number of tickets written for each kind of offence will at least allow the citizenry to understand if material action is being taken. Right now, it’s too easy to point out obvious cases where action is not being taken.
So, raise the rates. “Fine” with me. But also raise enforcement.
Oh, and by the way, did the Council make public that when outsourcing the payment of parking tickets, there was also going to be a new cost of paying the ticket of $3.50? That’s right. Now, in addition to your fine, you get to pay a processing fee. So, we’ve theoretically reduced the City’s operating cost, but added yet another fee on top of the fine.
Everything you said is so true. If you don’t pay the parking meter the odds are in your favor that you will not get a ticket. The parking enforcement guys most days don’t get around to doing constant enforcement. Train lot will get a look in the early morning but after that park in a permit spot most likely you won’t get a ticket. Park in any lot to run to the bank or even go have a meal for an hour, most likely no ticket. So raising the fines really won’t do much like the council thinks. Also snow removal…cops could care less about writing parking tickets for snow ordinance or not shoveling. I mean lets see there are 3 or 4 patrol cops on the road plus recently 4 houses burglarized in a 5 hour period….What would you rather have those 3 or 4 cops do? patrol or worry about parking? granted i will say 1 car parked on a side street overnight in a neighborhood is worth looking at. and running the plate.
“Ted, Oh Ted, come out from behind your latest mask… Or is it really someone else trying to be creative? Could be, I suppose.”
You suppose correctly Bob – “TheLegalFeesAreTooDamnHigh” ain’t me.
Bob, regarding snow removal – see my post under Jimmy’s cross walk story.
As for that car parked in the crosswalk – you punted, Bob.
Next time give us the plate number. 😉
Boy, I really have to get one of those coveted Rye Police medallions the beach club boys and girls get from Rye cop friends now, and we have to make friends with at least one Rye cop (my one contact got downsized, damn!) to fix my tickets for us or this is going to get pricey!