Court takes over collection for parking tickets

By Ed Runyan

Spotty payment drives the municipal court to take over collection of fines from tickets.

WARREN — Starting today, the city will get more serious about parking tickets.

This is the date when Warren Municipal Court takes over responsibility for collecting payments for parking tickets. A Michigan company handled collections before.

Margaret Scott, clerk of courts, said the change will mean serious consequences for those who ignore parking tickets.

“I’ve got the hammer to do it,” Scott said of the court.

City council approved legislation in July to make parking tickets a civil liability instead of a criminal offense.

That allows the city to place a notification on the offender’s driver’s license registration that would prevent him or her from renewing or transferring his vehicle registration without first paying the parking fees.

But even before that, the clerk of courts will turn over the offender to the city’s collection agent, which has succeeded in collecting other debts in the past, Scott said.

“If one doesn’t get your attention, the other will,” Scott said of collections and vehicle registration.

The city made the change because the former method of collecting parking fees wasn’t working. The former method involved a criminal offense, requiring the city to cite the alleged offender into court within 30 days. That method was expensive and difficult, officials said.

As a result, many were not paying fines.

Scott said she expects the new method to increase revenue collected by the court.

Mayor Michael O’Brien expects the new method to improve compliance with parking laws, free up parking spaces and be more convenient for offenders.

The city provides many downtown parking spaces for free for two hours to encourage business. But the city has found that many of the spaces were being used by downtown employees instead.

O’Brien first proposed the change from a criminal to a civil parking ticket more than 18 months ago.

Under the old system, parking tickets were $7, with a $15 late fee. The new parking ticket will cost $10, and failing to pay it in 10 days will add $15 more.

An additional 30 percent fee will be charged if the ticket is turned over to collection, Scott said.

The vehicle can be impounded or immobilized, with the cost of immobilization or storage charged to the owner, if a vehicle receives three or more parking infractions, Scott said.

The motor vehicle registration “hold” (preventing registration or transfer) can only occur after three or more offenses, officials said.

City officials have records of parking tickets dating back to 1999, but Scott said there are no plans at this time for the court to collect old parking tickets, only those that occur starting today.

Court costs are also rising effective today.

Scott said it is the first increase in court costs since 2003, and she analyzed fees charged at other similarly sized courts in Ohio to arrive at the new rates. The new structure puts Warren Municipal Court better in line with what other two-judge courts are charging, she said.

runyan@vindy.com