photo by: Shawn Valverde

Downtown Lawrence is pictured in November 2024. The view is of Massachusetts Street, center, looking south.

Lawrence commissioners will consider approving wholesale changes to the Downtown parking enforcement program — from decriminalizing parking violations to changing the appeals process — that would go into effect at the start of next year.

The biggest change as part of this proposal would be shifting the city’s current enforcement process from a legal one that can lead to court dates or the issuance of criminal complaints to an administrative process.

The proposal would increase the length of time to contest or pay a fine for a parking ticket from 10 days to 21 days, add more levels of appeals that can be completed online and provide more notices to remind people about the ticket.

Brad Harrell, the city’s parking manager, said part of the goal of the changes is to improve the customer service and overall parking experience for people parking Downtown. The time to contest or pay was extended because many people said that 10 day window was “too short,” Harrell said. Additionally, instead of one level of appeal, someone with a violation could appeal up to three times, which Harrell hopes improves the process.

“We feel like that ensures fairness and consistency,” Harrell said.

Harrell also said that the city would send up to six notices per ticket, when previously the city would only give two notices. The notices would also be given prior to the late fee being added, which gives people an opportunity to pay or contest prior to late fees being added to their parking violation.

Shifting parking enforcement to a civil process also allows for other ways to clear parking violations. Harrell said people with a ticket can attend an education session with parking services, which is a 10-15 minute conversation to help people avoid parking illegally in the future. Attending that session could clear two parking violations, Harrell said.

Changing the process to an administrative one rather than legal also means there is a less harsh escalation of violations. Because the city treats parking violations as a misdemeanor, Harris said the city’s only legal recourse for someone who failed to pay a parking ticket is the Municipal Court issuing a notice to appear criminal complaint, which creates a mandatory court date. If someone did not go to the court date, Harrell said that person would get a failure to appear bench warrant issued, which he said seems like a harsh response over a parking ticket.

“That’s considered to be overly punitive and not the direction the city wants to go,” Harrell said.

Instead of warrants, the new regulations would allow for the city to put boots on frequent violators’ cars, as the Journal-World reported. Harrell said that would be a “last resort” for extreme cases. To have a boot put on the car, the person must have three or more unpaid parking tickets that are 60 days overdue. After that, the person would get a 48-hour notice that the car could be impounded if the outstanding parking tickets aren’t paid before then.

Harrell said another addition to the proposal would be a parking amnesty program, which the city tested out for one month in September. The program allowed habitual violators a chance to pay off their tickets and waived half of the fines for eligible participants. Half of the collected money was then donated to the Douglas County Community Foundation.

Harrell felt the pilot program was “pretty successful.” We could say “The city cleared more than $46,000 of its outstanding parking citations, with 289 people participating in the program and two active warrants being cleared. Harrell added the city was able to donate $11,480.62 to nonprofits.

Harrell hopes the changes, which would go into effect Jan. 1, 2025, would make things easier for people to park Downtown and improve a process of clearing a citation that historically has been negative.

“I hope at the very least we can streamline the process in the unfortunate event of a parking citation,” Harrell said.