New Approach to Parking Violations in the City of Garland               1/24/20  K.Agee

District 6 Councilman Robert Vera arranged for Deputy City Attorney Mike Betz to speak before the audience at our 1st quarter West Garland Neighborhood Association (WGNA) meeting held on Thursday 1/23/2020, 7 p.m. at the Hollabaugh Rec Center.  Mr. Betz is the architect (with input from Councilman Vera & others) of a new approach to processing parking violations within the City of Garland. 

 

In the past, the City treated parking violations as “criminal offenses”.   If the charges were challenged in court, the City needed to prove that the owner of the vehicle was responsible for the offense.  The defendant could easily say “That wasn’t me driving that day, so leave me alone.”  The case usually had to be dismissed at that point and over the years, fewer and fewer tickets were issued.

 

Using the new flow, tickets will still normally be issued to the vehicle’s owner, but they will now be classified as “civil offenses”.  The owner will be held responsible if they “cause, suffer, allow, or permit” an offense to take place.  That means that by handing over the keys of a vehicle to someone else, they place their trust in them to abide by the various laws.  So if there’s a parking violation, the City goes after the owner, knowing the owner can seek their own recourse with the actual driver if they don’t want to take responsibility themselves.  The tickets will be backed up with photos of the offense (showing the vehicle, license, date, time, etc).

 

Initially, the City Marshal’s office will allocate about 40 hours per week of their time to this project.

 

The vehicle’s owner will receive a notification in the mail (probably similar to a red-light offense) with a request to either pay a fine ($25 for first offense, $50 for second offense, $75 for each additional offense) or show up in front of a “Hearing Examiner” on a particular date to present their defense.  If offender refuses to cooperate, they run the risk of having a locking device called a Barnacle attached to their windshield, making the car immobile.  Mr. Betz thinks this program may pay its own way, so the 40 hours per week labor allocation is subject to change.  However, revenue should decline as offenders realize that they need to change their habits…

 

Following is a general list of offenses that will be addressed thru the City Marshal’s office:

 

·        Parking on an unimproved surface

·        Parking on a sidewalk (partial block due to short driveway may be overlooked)

·        Parking within 20 feet of a crosswalk or intersection

·        Parking within 15 feet of a fire hydrant

·        Parking within 30 feet of a stop sign, yield sign, etc.

·        Blocking an alleyway

 

They will also be using a new tool called e-Chalk to address “abandoned vehicles” (parked in the street for more than 48 hours without being moved).  This technology uses image-recognition to record the position of a tire’s lug nuts in relation to the rest of the vehicle as a way to indicate if it has been moved or not. 

 

Mr. Betz recommends filing complaints thru the City’s eAssist tool if possible.  This is a web-based application that can be downloaded on smartphones, or accessed with an ordinary computer by going to the City’s website and searching for “eAssist”.  Following is a direct link: 

 

eAssist link:  https://iframe.publicstuff.com/#?client_id=417

For those without internet access, call this number:  972-205-2222

 

Office Betz points out there are currently 22 City Marshals on the payroll, but most of them are involved with things like arrest warrants, prisoner transfers, and security functions of City buildings (even the open area downtown).  This program is still in the learning phase, but has the potential to make noticeable improvements in our neighborhoods.