City parking officers wrote out about 180,000 tickets last year. It was about the same in 2011. But officers wrote out a lot more tickets - 214,500 of them - back in 2010.
The bad news is…that means parking enforcement revenues are down by $1.2 million. The good news is that parking compliance is on the rise.
"That's a great thing. In fact, what we've done over the years is tried to make it easier for people to comply because at the end of the day that's what we want."
Howard Chan is the city's Parking Services Manager. He says
making it "easier" includes the city's switch to parking meters
that accept credit cards.
Chan says another reason citation numbers are down is more
turnover among parking officers.
"This past year it was unusually higher, the turnover. You
either have what it takes to be an officer or no you go 'there's
too much conflict here, this is not for me.'"
The revenue numbers are included in the city's midyear budget
report which goes before the City Council tonight.