Parking violations in the City of Jefferson may soon be going up.

Police Chief Dave Morlan recommended to the Jefferson Streets/Sanitation/ Sewer/Water Committee to have all parking violations in the City Code be increased.  He says that currently, all parking violations are $10 fines with the exception of improper use of a handicap space is $100 which is mandated by State Code.

He requested that violations for improper parking of recreational vehicles and trailers be increased to $75, parking violations during snow removal go up to $50 and all other parking violations which includes parking near a fire hydrant or parking the wrong way on a street be raised to $25.

Morlan explains the process of how they treat most parking violations.  He says they usually send out a letter to the vehicle owner to try and gain willful compliance.  Then, they if continue to improperly park their vehicle, they are sent another warning letter from the police department.  On the third offense, they are finally issued a $10 citation.

Morlan talks about why he would like to see an increase in parking fines.

“We’re going out and investing so much time and trying to gain compliance by just sending the letters out and asking instead of immediately citing, we feel that if we’ve given two warnings for that and $10 isn’t much of a consequence when we’re trying to be so lenient on it.”

He states that last year, they only wrote four tickets for snow ordinance violations and they haven’t dealt with too many recreational and trailer vehicle violations on a monthly basis.

The City Council approved the first reading to change the city’s ordinance and will have to go through two more readings before it can be legally changed.