Partial amnesty proposed for unpaid parking tickets

By Susan Buchanan
Contributing Writer

You may have a couple of parking tickets stashed away in a drawer at home. The city is owed over $180 million in unpaid tickets and other traffic and parking citations, dating back more than five years. To collect some of that revenue, State Representative and Speaker Pro Tempore Walter Leger introduced a bill in Baton Rouge this spring that would offer partial amnesty to Orleans residents. That money is badly needed. In November, Mayor Landrieu’s Administration and the City Council agreed on a balanced budget for 2015 but said limited revenue kept them from fully funding some items.

“The City of New Orleans amnesty bill HB 528, which is before the House Committee on Municipal, Parochial and Cultural Affairs, would give the city authority to devise a program to assist with collection of outstanding debts,” Leger said last week. In a mid-May presentation to the legislature, the city put money owed by residents and visitors since 2009 at $70 million for parking citations, $40 million for traffic tickets owed Orleans Parish Civil District Court, and $73 million for photographed traffic citations, he said. Revenue received from parking and traffic citations is deposited in the city’s general fund.

Unpaid parking and traffic debts, combined with $11 million owed the city’s Sanitation Department and $43 million owed to its Medical Emergency Services, total a substantial $237 million, Leger said. Sanitation and medical emergency debts are included in the bill, which was approved in a 15-to-zero vote by the house municipal committee on May 18. The bill has advanced to the full house for final passage.

Leger said the city, meanwhile, has recouped some of the money owed in parking citations by hiring a new, delinquent-collections vendor and a new, curbside-parking contractor, and by expanding the size of its parking boot crew.

Bradley Howard, spokesman for Mayor Mitch Landrieu, last week said the $70 million in unpaid parking citations is in fact $17.5 million in citations, along with $52.5 million in penalties and interest owed the city dating to 2006. “Our amnesty proposal would allow those with any type of outstanding citation to come into compliance by allowing the city to waive some portion of penalties and interest,” Howard said. “We think those with outstanding citations would use the opportunity to come into compliance, especially as they see that the consequences of non-compliance are significant.”

Enforcement was stepped up in recent years. “We’re aggressively pursuing all outstanding collections with a new delinquent collections vendor and by increasing parking boot crews from two to four,” Howard said. “The number of parking control officers has increased. We have added auditors and agents to improve collections in departments throughout city government. Our collections percentages have improved in nearly every category.”

This year, the city will recoup additional money from parking in the French Quarter. In late April, the French Market Corporation, or FMC, said it would provide $2.4 million to the city in 2015, versus $1 million last year, because of increased profits from three FMC-run parking lots. The French Market is a public benefits corporation, and under a 1992 franchise lease, the FMC gives 20 percent of its net revenues to the city. The three lots, with a combined 580 spaces, are near the river behind Café du Monde, and just off of Esplanade Avenue and on Elysian Fields.

“In April 2014, we took over management of these lots from a partnership, and that saved us a significant amount of money in the first year alone,” FMC executive director Jon Smith said last week. “That partnership included Central Parking, its DBE or disadvantaged business enterprise partner, and at one point Standard Parking—which Central Parking had merged with,” he said. Since FMC took over the lots, parking at them has increased slightly.

“We’re a profitable venture and in an advantageous cash position now, so we’re able to pledge more parking revenue,” Smith said. “Our contribution grew by $1.4 million this year because that’s the net cash from parking” in the FMC-run lots. As for the price to park in those lots, it’s based on the season, day and time of day, with rates higher during Mardi Gras and French Quarter Fest, he said.

You probably know some of the reasons the city has so many unpaid parking tickets. Residents don’t always have the money, or are procrastinating or planning to contest the ticket. Many people were accustomed to parking for free before Katrina. But the city’s a tourist destination, and in recent years more spots have been metered by the city while off-street space has been turned into private parking. With tight parking in mind, the National World War II Museum, which receives over 4,000 visitors on its busiest days, has started work on a 450-car garage bounded by Poeyfarre, Magazine and Constance Streets. It’s slated to open next March.

“Initially, those spaces will be for museum visitors and our own needs,” Bob Farnsworth, the WWII museum’s senior vice president for capital programs, said last week. “Then we’ll take a look at it, and we’ll probably open up some spots to the public.” The garage will also serve a 200-room hotel that the museum plans to build facing Andrew Higgins Drive, starting next spring.

As downtown is refurbished, plans are to build more parking facilities. Residents will pay to park on and off street or they’ll drive around longer, searching for a free spot.

This article originally published in the May 25, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.