Government

Data: Parking Tickets Issued and Associated Revenue Down Since 2017

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New Canaan issued about 20% fewer parking tickets for the first eight months of 2018 compared to 2017, and the figure has declined again by an another approximately 5% this year, officials say. Total revenue from parking tickets also has declined in the year-to-date period since 2017, from about $263,000 to $231,000, according to new data released during Thursday’s meeting of the Parking Commission. 

So far this year, the Parking Bureau itself has either dismissed or reduced the fines associated with tickets by some $52,000, according to the department’s manager, Stacy Miltenberg. “We are being lenient and merciful,” Miltenberg said at the meeting, held in Town Hall. “We are going out there and we are trying to educate people, and maybe people don’t understand but we are trying to be a kinder and gentler department. I know some people don’t think we are.

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Officials: Town Attorney Investigating Whether New Canaan Should Change Tire-Chalking Practice 

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The town attorney is reviewing the practice of enforcement officers in New Canaan—ruled unconstitutional by a federal appeals court in the midwest—of chalking the tires of vehicles by way of tracking how long they’re parked in the same place, officials said. Though decision made by the U.S. Court of Appeals Sixth Circuit—a jurisdiction that covers Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee—is “weak,” Parking Commission Chairman Keith Richey said at the appointed body’s most recent meeting, “but that was their decision.”

“It’s on the basis of the chalk-marking being a search,” Richey said during the May 2 meeting, held at Town Hall. “And as a lawyer who has studied Constitutional law, i cannot understand how chalk-marking is a search, considering that you have available today photographs, you have license plate readers. Those are not searches, but chalking would be a search.”

He added, “I can tell you that the town lawyer is looking at it, and that until he comes up with decision, we are not following it.”

The three-judge panel’s decision involved the case of a Saginaw, Mich. woman who had been cited by the same enforcement officer 15 times within just a few years, according to a NPR report.

Government

Divided Parking Commission Upholds $30 Ticket for Local Woman Obstructing Two Spaces

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Members of the Parking Commission at their most recent meeting voted 3-2 to uphold a $30 ticket for a New Canaan woman cited for obstructing two spaces in a municipal lot downtown. 

Malia Frame during an appeal hearing before the Commission said she typically backs up her GMC Yukon “a few times before I pull into a space.”

“And then I always check the line on my side but I haven’t been on the opposite side,” Frame said during the hearing, held at Town Hall. “So ever since I got this ticket, I have been checking on the other side and I just realized that I have to be more careful when I straighten up. I’m not saying it didn’t happen—I’m happy to pay the fine. It was just an honest mistake.”

The ticket had been issued at 1:03 p.m. on Tuesday, April 2, records show. Seeing a photo of her vehicle for the first time on the night of the hearing, Frame conceded that the Yukon was “ definitely askew.”

“But my problem that day is that I got—I mean I have huge car, I have a Yukon, and it’s every big,” she said.

Chris Hering

Parking Commission Votes 3-2 in Favor of Extending Main Street Loading Zone from Half-Day to Full-Day

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Saying the change will ease traffic and send a clearer message to non-commercial drivers, officials are recommending that an area on Main Street that serves as a loading zone for half of the day become a full-day loading zone. In addition to extending the time of the loading zone at Main Street and East Avenue, members of the Parking Commission are recommending that the area out front of Organika be striped as a clear signal to motorists, who often are ticketed there. The proposal originated with the Parking Bureau and was supported by a 3-2 vote on the Commission at the appointed body’s May 2 meeting. 

As it is now, because the loading zone operates from 7 to 11 a.m. and then coverts to regular two-hour parking, the town can’t indicate beyond signage—for example, by painting the curb or street—that it’s a designated area for trucks, commissioners said. But if the loading zone extends to 3 p.m., more can be done to make it clearer to motorists that they can’t park there during the day. In the afternoon, because the loading zone is not in effect and regular cars park there, “the trucks get there, they are blocking in the cars, they are parking on East Avenue and blocking the traffic going down East Avenue,” Parking Manager Stacy Miltenberg told commissioners at the meeting, held in Town Hall.

Commission Votes 3-2 To Recommend Metered Parking on Main and Elm

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Saying it didn’t make sense for downtown New Canaan’s best parking spaces to be free, town officials this month voted to recommend installing meters on Main and Elm Streets. The Parking Commission as part of its 3-2 vote at the May 2 meeting also is recommending that the spaces running along the northern edge of Morse Court, which now offer free 15-minute parking, also be metered. “By giving away free parking on the main streets, we create a perverse incentive for people to not use parking in the peripheral lots that are designed to take the load off [Elm and Main Streets],” Commissioner Chris Hering said at the meeting, held in Town Hall. Hering voted in favor of the change, along with Commissioners Stuart Stringfellow and Peter Ogilvie (who long advocacy for this idea was recorded in a recent 0684-Radi0 podcast). Chairman Keith Richey and Commissioner Pam Crum voted against the recommendation.