SOUTH PORTLAND — The South Portland City
Council may soon approve two new measures, related to parking tickets and
burglar alarms, aimed at capturing lost revenue.
In conjunction with the roll-out of a new
electronic system for issuing and tracking parking tickets, the city will
refuse to renew or complete vehicle registrations for residents who have
outstanding fines. Meanwhile, unpaid fees assessed for police calls to false
alarms could jeopardize the renewal of business licenses.
Both changes will be sent to public hearing and
possible final adoption at the council’s Dec. 3 meeting. If adopted, the new
rules would go into effect Dec 23. According to Police Chief Ed Googins, the
restrictions on registration and business license renewals will apply to fines
previously incurred.
“We do have quite a list of unpaid parking tickets
on file,” he said.
“I think the city will honor the new appeal process
even though it does not go into effect until Dec. 23, but there is no
limitation on looking back at unpaid parking tickets,” said City Attorney Sally
Daggett.
That seemed to come as welcome news to councilors
“The changes button up our procedures and may
result in a small amount of additional revenue for the city,” said Councilor
Tom Coward. “Every little bit helps.”
“Any way we can clean up our records and take care
of issues that are outstanding, it’s important to do,” said Mayor Patti Smith.
“Generally, we want to work with people rather than punish them, but I think
this is a good, fair effort.”
The South Portland Police Department does not
charge anything the first time it sends officers to chase down a burglar alarm
that has gone off because of a malfunction or inadvertent activation. However,
the second instance nets a $35 fee, the second $75, and the fourth and each
subsequent instance $100 each.
“We have a lot of false alarm fees that aren’t
collected,” said Finance Director Greg L’Heureux. “The reward is there.”
Although L’Heureux did not have an immediate dollar
amount that could be collected, he noted that his department recently sent out
a batch of 800 notices on unpaid parking tickets.
Parking tickets, which range from a standard of $20
for most violations up to $100 for illegally parking in a space reserved for
handicapped drivers, can be paid at City Hall when registering a vehicle.
However, the finance office may register the vehicle after confirming that a
court date has been scheduled for an outstanding ticket, or that a newly
created appeals process has been initiated.
An appeal must be made to the police department
within 15 days of receiving a ticket and, if denied, will automatically turn
into a request for a hearing in Cumberland County Unified Court.
One concern for councilors when considering the
parking ticket change is the admission that, due to a “technology gap,” people
who register their vehicles online can avoid the parking ticket restriction.
The city does not yet have the ability to marry the online registration process
to its database of outstanding tickets.
According to City Manager Jim Gailey, about 20,000
personal vehicles are registered in South Portland each year, of which 4,800
are renewals completed online.
“I’m afraid the people who can least afford to pay
their parking tickets may get hit because their may not have a computer or be
savvy enough to do it online,” said Councilor Maxine Beecher.
However, Deputy Police Chief Amy Berry noted that
the police department has a policy of waiving the first parking ticket.
“If you have a family that has three cars, they
effectively get three waivers,” said L’Heureux, adding that far from concern
about tying business licenses and car registrations to unpaid fines, the usual
public response, among people he’s spoken to, has been, “Yeah, go get ‘em.”
Mayor Patti Smith pointed out that no resident or
business owner spoke out on either ordinance update, either at the Nov. 19
first reading or a Nov. 14 workshop.
“So, hopefully, if there is some concern out there,
those people will come forward,” she said.
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