HomeMy WebLinkAboutA001 - cover letter to City Council for ordinance City of AMES, Iowa
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jL (515) 232-6210
JOHN R. KLAUS
City Attorney
R. MICHAEL HAYES
Ass't. City Attorney
May 4 , 1977
Honorable Lee Fellinger, Mayor and
Members of the City Council
Of The City of Ames , Iowa
Dear Mayor Fellinger and Council Members :
Recently you received the six month evaluation of the data
processing system for handling illegal parking citations
through the Clerk of Court' s office. The City staff con-
cludes that the Clerk of Court' s office cannot or will not
adequately process the 9 , 000 to 10 , 000 illegal parking
citations issued each year by Ames police , even if the
recommended system modifications were adopted. Furthermore,
the City Attorney ' s office has determined that Iowa Code
section 321. 236 (1) grants the City power to handle illegal
parking violations outside of the court system, in the
same manner that the City presently handles overtime park-
ing violations . Therefore, the City staff recommends that
the City so handle illegal parking violations . Enclosed is
an ordinance to enable the City to do this .
The maximum allowable penalty of five dollars is recommended
for illegal parking violations . This amount is comparable
to that charged by other Iowa cities, such as Des Moines and
Cedar Rapids , which handle their own illegal parking viola-
tions . Moreover, it will save the public money over the
total fine and court costs , if illegal parking were handled
through the court. Presently such illegal parking citations
involve a $2 . 00 fine and at least $5. 00 costs , and as of
January 1, 1978 , will involve a $5 . 00 fine and $5. 00 costs .
This system should be self supporting. Additionally, the
City should be able to dispose of most violations improperly
cited or for which there exists a legal defense without
incurring court costs of at least $8 . 50 for dismissal, as at
present.
Combining Education and Industry with Hospitality
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In addition, City staff recommends modifications to the
existing procedure for overtime parking by eliminating two
of the steps in the penalty. It is recommended that time
to discharge an illegal parking violation for fifty cents
be extended to one week and then the penalty jump directly
to five dollars . This will allow the city to save the cost
of sending four notices , one at each step in the penalty
schedule to the registered owner; it will allow the City
to substantially unify the procedures for handling both
overtime and illegal parking violations ; and the time saved
from processing additional notices for the 50 , 000 to 60 , 000
overtime parking violations will be used to process illegal
parking violations without need for additional personnel.
The proposed procedure will be that a notice of violation
will be left on the improperly parked vehicle. If the
appropriate amount is not paid in a week or two , one notice
of violation will be sent to the registered owner of the
vehicle . If the violation has not been paid or excused
within 30 days of the date of violation, an information will
be filed in court and a warrant issued for the registered
owner' s arrest. The Clerk of Court should be able to process
these informations and warrants . First, she has been re-
lieved of the time-consuming recording requirements for the
70 to 75% who readily pay illegal parking citations now.
Second, the City has prescreened these cases so that all
warrants presented her are valid and should be issued forth-
with. The experience with the overtime parking procedure was
that once we had prompt follow-up through the stage of filing
informations and issuing warrants , the number for whom we
had to file informations and issue warrants dropped drastically
to around 25 to 30 per week.
Respectfully submitted,
R. Michael Hayes
Assistant City Attorney