Cedar Rapids parking fines, rules don’t match City Code

CEDAR RAPIDS - If you pay a $10 parking ticket, but the City Code says tickets can cost only $7.50, should you get a refund?

Bob Teig thinks so.

The Cedar Rapids resident and retired assistant U.S. attorney thinks some of the city's parking meter violations aren't enforceable because Cedar Rapids City Code doesn't match practices used by Park Cedar Rapids, the city's private parking contractor.

Park CR leaders say their deal with the city exempts them from City Code.

'Our contract allows us to set those (fees and fines) and officially omits us from having to go through the City Code process,” said Jon Rouse, Park CR general manager. 'I do think the City Code could be modified.”

Teig first wrote to City Attorney Jim Flitz in April 2013, suggesting the Code be tweaked because a section on parking meters did not seem to pertain to numbered parking spaces controlled by LUKE payment kiosks, installed in 2011. The code says parking meters must be adjacent to their corresponding parking spaces and must have timing mechanisms to show how much time is left before the meter expires.

'This can't be right, can it?” Teig wrote. 'If so, is a quick fix in order? And I just paid two parking tickets!”

In May 2014, Teig wrote to Mayor Ron Corbett and members of City Council, alerting them to his ongoing concerns about the definition of parking meters and hourly meter parking rates. The code says rates at downtown meters are 90 cents an hour, but if you park in a downtown loop spot today, you'll pay $1 an hour.

The parking agency also increased parking fines Jan. 1, raising the expired meter penalty from $7.50 to $10 and fining drivers who overstay meters with time limits - even if they keep paying the meter - $15. The changes are not reflected in City Code, which says 'meter violations shall be cited at $7.50 for the first violation.”

Cedar Rapids started leasing its downtown parking system to Downtown Parking Management Inc. in 2011. DPMI's five-person board hired Park Cedar Rapids to operate the system with the expectation parking generates at least $1.1 million a year for the city to pay debt and maintain parking facilities.

Beyond that, the city's agreement with DPMI - renewed in April - gives Park CR the sole authority to set charges or fees.

'From DPMI's perspective, the parking agreement we have clearly provides the authority to us to manage and operate the system and enforce the penalties,” said Doug Neumann, Economic Alliance interim president and CEO who serves on the DPMI board. 'That document has been legally vetted, and we've been operating in compliance with that for five years.”

Park CR handed out 124,599 parking citations and warnings worth $1.36 million between Nov. 1, 2009, and October 31, a January Gazette review showed. More than three-quarters of the tickets during that period were for $7.50, 17 percent were $25 and 4.4 percent were warnings.

According to City Code Section 61.110, a vehicle owner who doesn't pay parking tickets may be charged with a simple misdemeanor.

Rouse, with Park CR, said that doesn't happen. The agency gives drivers warnings when their cars are subject to tow and has occasional opportunities for drivers to swap charitable donations for fines.

City officials conceded Tuesday they need to update parking ordinances, some of which date back to the mid-1970s.

'We acknowledge that the ordinance should be updated and are working to move those changes forward,” Spokeswoman Maria Johnson said in an email. 'We have been working with Park CR on amendments to the ordinance, including changes to reflect updated technology, fee structures and other details.”

Teig wonders why it's taken so long.

'If the government wants everyone to abide by the law, the government has to abide by the law, too,” he said.