Parking code update before Cedar Rapids City Council

CEDAR RAPIDS — The Cedar Rapids City Council is to vote Tuesday on parking code changes that would update meter rates, fines and definitions after a Cedar Rapids resident and retired U.S. attorney complained the outdated code makes parking tickets unenforceable.

Bob Teig wrote to city officials in 2013 and 2014, asking them to update the City Code to reflect new LUKE payment kiosks, which replaced meters on many downtown streets in 2011, and update parking rates.

Park Cedar Rapids, the city's private parking contractor, raised fine amounts Jan. 1, but the old fines remained in the code, which spurred Teig to suggest Cedar Rapids residents may not have to pay the higher ticket costs.

'If the government wants everyone to abide by the law, the government has to abide by the law, too,' Teig told The Gazette last summer.

The city didn't make the changes until after The Gazette wrote about the issue June 8.

Jon Rouse, Park CR general manager, said in October he met with employees from the City Attorney's Office soon after The Gazette article to talk about changing the code.

The final version of ordinances to amend Chapter 61 came before the Council for a first reading Nov. 15 and received unanimous support. Tuesday, the council holds a second, and possibly third, reading. The proposal starts on page 272 of the City Council packet. If approved, the code changes would be effective immediately.

Among the changes, the city is adding 'centralized pay station' to a list of definitions to describe the LUKE kiosks, which accept payment for multiple parking spots. The parking meter definition would be amended to include not just traditional meters that show you how much time is remaining, but signs that instruct motorists to pay at a centralized pay station.

On-street parking rates in the downtown core are being changed in code from 90 cents an hour to $1 an hour — already the going rate.

Food trucks, not previously included in this section of Code, would pay $5 per meter per day. This is in addition to city license fees for mobile food vendors.

Parking tickets, by street

Map shows the streets where the most tickets were recorded between 2009 and 2015. Map by Chris Essig / The Gazette

The revised parking code updates parking ticket amounts to reflect the fines that went into effect Jan. 1. This means the expired meter penalty is $10 and drivers who overstay meters with time limits — even if they keep paying the meters — pay $15. Other parking violations cost $25, the code proposal states.

Park CR handed out 124,599 parking citations and warnings worth $1.36 million between Nov. 1, 2009, and October 31, 2015, a 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.