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Recommendation to add language to the 2012 State Legislative Agenda to enhance the City’s ability to collect delinquent parking citations; and request City Attorney to amend the Long Beach Municipal Code to require any and all delinquent parking citations be paid before release of a towed vehicle to the owner. (Citywide)
DISCUSSIONAt the City Council meeting on April 3, 2012, the City Council received the “Parking Citations Collection Process Audit Report” from the City Auditor. As part of the discussion, the City Council requested that staff identify and implement near term solutions to improve revenue collection and research a new parking citation system.
Staff has identified two potential State legislative changes, and one Municipal Code change that would expand the City’s ability to collect delinquent parking citation revenue. The first relates to the number of delinquent parking citations accruing to a vehicle before it may be towed and liened as a scofflaw vehicle. State law currently requires a minimum of five delinquent parking citations for a vehicle to be identified as a scofflaw vehicle and subject to towing and liening. However, by reducing the number of delinquent parking citations to three would allow the City to tow and lien scofflaw vehicles at an earlier stage making it more likely that the violator has not sold or transferred the vehicle, or that the five-year statute of limitations for collections has not expired.
Secondly, while the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) collects and transmits to local municipalities revenue from delinquent parking citations through the annual vehicle registration renewal process, staff has determined that vehicles that are newly registered as a result of sale or transfer are exempt from this collection effort and parking citation revenue remains uncollected. Of the 200 scofflaw vehicles tested in the Audit, 86 percent did not reflect the current vehicle owner, an indication that much of the uncoll...
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