The Oakland Parking Enforcement Reform Initiative is gaining steam. I've been asked to now make public our efforts, so this blog post is to get things rolling.
Which is a weird consideration because they've been rolling along already!
A group of concerned Oakland citizens have been meeting and communicating to fashion a comprehensive Oakland Parking Enforcement Reform Initiative for presentation to Oakland voters in 2010.
The diverse team consists of both Oakland business owners and residents and I'm really, frankly, surprised at how smooth and easy our meetings and communications have been. Oaklanders are used to disparate groups not being able to see eye-to-eye on even the smallest issues; not so here. Yes, there are disagreements, but they tend to come to a rapid end. It's really cool to be a part of.
Everyone involved has been energized to act - if even to just be kept 'in the loop' and provide informal feedback – because in some way large or small they've been
harmed by the City of Oakland's aggressive parking enforcement process and outrageously high parking fees.
There are stories of cars booted and towed that were owned by working women with kids, while those persons were present. But even more troubling is the rate of ticketing; many Oaklanders are being ticketed even between 2 AM and 5 AM! If a person's car is just one-half-inch into the red zone at 4 AM, it gains a ticket.
Th result is a lot of Oaklanders that have more than five tickets, making them "tow" candidates. The City of Oakland has spawned a level of political anger I've never seen before.
The general concern is the City of Oakland's balancing its budget on the backs of Oakland's poor in the middle of a bad economy with over 17 percent unemployed in Oakland. The group, to a person, has been determined to eliminate Oakland's ability to harm its poorest people in this way.
This is the structure of the initiative as it has been discussed to date. I stress that this is not singularly any one person's idea, and anyone who makes claims to the contrary is not informed of the truth. Moreover, the initiative is a work-in-progress, although we're rapidly approaching consensus. The objective has been to keep it simple.
Here it is as of this writing:
1.All parking meters will be taken out of service; time limits will be enforced by chalking tires.
2.Tickets for time violations will be capped at $20 and all late fees and penalties at $50.
3.The city will not tow vehicles for city parking enforcement rules other than in case of an emergency or blocking of access for emergency vehicles, or vehicle abandonment.
4.No vehicle will be ticketed or towed for blocking a driveway without the consent of the owner of the driveway.
5.Cars towed for DMV holds must have a city employee present to authorize the impoundments, and a good faith effort is required to have the owner of the vehicle present to get their personal property; personal property can't be removed by anyone other than the car's owner.
6.Towing and impoundment fees are capped at $300 per vehicle.
7.Proceeds from impounded vehicles that are sold at auction pay the DMV and City of Oakland fees first, the impound fees second, and remaining funds are kept by the owner of the vehicle.
8.After a vehicle has been impounded forfeited and sold, the original owner of the car has no more parking fine obligations to the City of Oakland.
9.The original owner of the car must be given the first option to buy back their car at the accepted minimum public auction price before the auction is held.
10.If any single provision of this initiative is found by the courts to be invalid for any reason, all other provisions are to remain in effect.
The next meeting of the Oakland Parking Initiative Group will be in January at a date to be determined. If you want to get involved drop me an email or Facebook or Twitter message (as this is also on Facebook and Twitter) and I'll put you on our mailing list.
