By Stephen Janis
A bill that would end Baltimore’s reign as purveyor of the country's stiffest fines for unpaid parking tickets is now set for a public hearing on Dec. 7.
The proposed law, sponsored by City Councilman Bernard “Jack” Young, would cap the penalties leveled against scofflaws who do not pay tickets on time to five times the original fine -- a substantial departure from the current policy, which allows $16-per-month penalties to accumulate indefinitely, resulting in $23 tickets racking up thousands of dollars in penalties.
The bill is meant to make the fine fit the crime, said Young, who has been an outspoken critic of the city’s policy.
“We need people to come out and support this,” he said. “We need to be fair the way we fine people, and not bankrupt them.”
Last spring the city eschewed amnesty for scofflaws, and announced it was attempting to collect fines for 80,000 unpaid tickets that resulted in $130 million in overdue fines, by hiring a law firm.
The city has threatened to sue scofflaws while seeking an eye-popping average sum of $1,625 per violation — an amount unmatched by any other municipality across the country.
However, the city’s efforts were stymied because ,unlike other cities, Baltimore’s parking tickets are still criminal offenses, making it impossible for the city to pursue scofflaws with civil lawsuits.
The city’s efforts were criticized by a group called Baltimore Scofflaws, a loose organization of people who had failed to pay tickets, many of whom said they did not know they had received a ticket, receiving a dunning letter years later demanding thousands of dollar in payments.
One of the members, Baltimore teacher Alisha Marchewka, went to court to fight $1,900 in fines accumulated from three tickets she received shortly after moving to Baltimore. The late notices for the tickets, which Marchewka said she does not remember receiving, were sent to an old address in Portland.
Still, Marchewka’s court case was successful.
“He said I was guilty, but he waived all the fines and penalties,” she said of the decision by District Court Judge John R. Hargrove Jr. to toss $1,900 in fines that a law firm had demanded Marchewka pay.
“My advice is to fight; don’t just pay it,” Marchewka said.
Recently Investigative Voice obtained an internal report commissioned by Mayor Sheila Dixon that revealed nearly 95 percent of all tickets challenged in court in 2008 were thrown out, according to a review of parking adjudication.
The tossed tickets translated into a loss of 10,000 citations in 2008 that failed to pass legal muster. The number was even higher in 2007, when more than 96 percent of tickets challenged in front of a judge were dismissed, resulting in the voiding of 11,000 tickets.
The study also highlights the problems with an overburdened court system full of sympathetic judges inclined to throw tickets out, noting that the state court system garners court fees even if the ticket is tossed, giving judges little incentive to uphold penalties.
The report, which is currently under review by the Dixon administration, outlines a plan that would move ticket adjudication to a newly created Bureau of Administrative Review, entitling motorists to contest tickets at an administrative hearing instead of in court.
The report says administrative hearings would save the city money by lifting the requirement for ticket agents to appear at trials. Citing statistics that show the average parking agent writes 29 tickets per shift, the report concludes the city loses citations that are not issued if the agent attends court.
In total, judges tossed nearly 30,000 tickets in three years, costing the city almost $1 million in fines, but also untold millions in penalties.
The study, which recommends the city convert parking tickets from criminal penalties into civil citations, reveals a system that relies heavily on penalties for revenue, but has little hope of collecting. For the past three years 80 percent of all monies owed on unpaid citations are late-payment penalties in excess of the original fine.
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Statistics on Baltimore parking tickets*
2006 2007 2009
Number of citations issued 406,965 422,966 396,613
Citations open 70,206 72,749 59,516
Value of open citations $29,113.592 $21,209,630 $13,297,400
Value of original fines $2,986,732 $2,832, $2,349,346
Value of assessed penalties $26,119,666 $18,367,837 $10,940,263
Number of citations closed 336,740 350,171 337,070
Value of closed citations $20,319,895 $19,735,802 $17,791,789
Value of original fines $11,057,809 $11,623,317 $11,398,740
Value of assessed penalties $9,804,953 $10,320,792 $10,068,004
Number of contested 9,499 12,003 11,054
Dismissed or reduced 7809 11,618 10,558
Percentage Dismissed/reduced 82 percent 96 percent 95 percent
Value of fines dismissed/reduced $238,221 $329,318 $356,989
*Source: Parking Citation Adjudication in Baltimore
