Parking complaints unveil potential legal roadblock
The many complaints in recent weeks about Atlanta's outsourced parking enforcement have surfaced a surprisingly thorny question: Can the company hired to manage the program legally ticket vehicles?
To date, there is no consensus among city leaders as to the answer.
"There is a difference of opinion on the bench of whether [parking tickets] are civil or criminal," Atlanta Municipal Court Judge Crystal Gaines told city council members during a meeting Friday.
Some argue the tickets are a criminal matter and should not be handled by a private company.
In most cities, police or city workers enforce parking, and the issue of legality is, well, not an issue. Atlanta's elected officials agreed late last year to a seven-year contract with Milwaukee-based Duncan Solutions to take charge of ticketing illegally parked vehicles and to install hundreds of parking meters across the city. Duncan agreed to pay the city $5.5 million a year under the new program, called PARKatlanta, and gets to keep whatever it collects from meters after that.
Councilwoman Keisha Bottoms, an attorney who took office in January, does not want the city to lose revenue. But she is concerned about the legality of Atlanta's parking enforcement program.
"I just want to make sure we're doing it the right way," Bottoms told the AJC Tuesday. "My gut is we have civilians handling these criminal cases."
She wonders why the question wasn't resolved before the contract was approved.
"It's not clear-cut because this is the first time we've had [outsourced parking enforcement] in Georgia," said Atlanta Solicitor Raines Carter, whose office prosecutes parking cases.
The council voted Monday to impose a 30-day moratorium on PARKatlanta's enforcement of metered parking spaces in Atlanta to give city officials time to address citizen complaints about the program and to resolve the legal questions surrounding it. Police can still ticket vehicles. The moratorium legislation does not include residential permit parking enforcement.
The moratorium will begin later this month, if Mayor Kasim Reed signs off on it. Reed supports the idea of a moratorium, but his staff has not yet reviewed the council's legislation, a spokesman said Tuesday..
Some big cities that have outsourced parking enforcement have heard loud complaints from drivers.
Chicago leased its parking meters to a private company last year that paid $1.2 billion up front for a 75-year lease. After the change began, motorists griped about broken meters and meters charging the wrong rates, according to news reports.
Ray Giudice, a veteran criminal and traffic law attorney in the Atlanta area, believes PARKatlanta employees can legally write tickets. He compared the practice to cities and counties that outsource probation of former inmates and prison operations.
"I don't see why they can't farm out parking," said Giudice. "It still has to go to a court and it still has to be adjudicated."
Carter said some parking tickets should be heard by a city judge next week. He hopes to get some clarity on some of the questions raised in recent weeks during those cases.
"Those are the issues that we want to be properly litigated before the court," he said.
About the Author
Eric Stirgus joined The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2001. He currently writes about higher education and has assisted in the newsroom’s COVID-19 vaccine coverage. Born and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., Eric is active in the Atlanta Association of Black Journalists and the Education Writers Association and enjoys mentoring aspiring journalists.
