The proposed reforms come as Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr awaits an analysis of the city’s parking assets and contemplates spinning off Municipal Parking, a department that generally breaks even or fails to bring in enough revenue to cover its expenses.
The city is paying $32 to issue and process a $30 parking violation, and it hasn’t adjusted rates since 2001. On top of that, about half of Detroit’s 3,404 parking meters are not operating properly at any given time, says Orr’s spokesman, Bill Nowling.
“It’s another example of the old, antiquated system and processes the city has that creates impediments for anyone trying to do their job,” Nowling said.
Detroit Chief Operating Officer Gary Brown is advocating for the changes, which he says would bring in an additional $6 million per year and $60 million over the 10-year plan of adjustment Orr is proposing for the bankrupt city.
“That’s real money,” Brown said. “If the asset is truly an asset and making money, no one is going to want to do anything with it.”
Brown said the ticket increases would not unduly burden Detroit residents, since 70 percent of the fines are written to nonresident offenders. The city also expects to offer a one-time amnesty program that’s commensurate with any increase.
Brown said it’s unclear how much is currently owed to the city in unpaid parking fines. Some fines are more than 10 years old, he said, surpassing the statute of limitations and “should be written off.”
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Privatizing municipal parking is an initiative that can work to benefit a city pretty significantly, depending on how it's done.
Initially, the City can reap a large lump sum for the sale of the parking assets and rights. The private company will be better at administering the parking facilities and modernizing street metering (and making it more convenient to the public).
Having worked for The Government, I'm always suspicious of reports that purport to put a cost on things like issuing and processing a parking violation. Everybody in government is "overhead," and they will get their paychecks no matter what they are doing - or if they are doing nothing at all. Assigning a value for an hour of clerk's time as though that hour would have been productively employed otherwise had the task not been done...it makes no sense.
In this case, the question is, if parking is privatized, will those City clerks' positions be eliminated or will they just fade into the morass of quasi-productive municipality while continuing to be paid? Hopefully, K.O. has instilled a new culture that makes the former possibility more likely than the latter.
