ENCINITAS — The City of Encinitas is poised to contract with a private company for parking enforcement services in response to a growing number of reported parking violations in the downtown area.
The Encinitas City Council on March 23 voted 5-0 to modify the existing city code allowing the city to designate private individuals or entities to assist in parking enforcement efforts.
The council must approve the modified ordinance a second time before it becomes applicable law, per standard procedures.
According to Councilman Tony Kranz, the city has received numerous complaints from downtown business owners negatively impacted by a surge in parking violations outside of their establishments.
Typically, code enforcement is too busy to handle minor parking infractions on this scale, which led the city to consider contracting with a private company, Kranz said.
“This is an issue that was primarily raised by the downtown business owners, and the fact that the city hasn’t been enforcing time limits on parking downtown makes it so that there isn’t enough turnover in parking to encourage shoppers to come downtown,” Kranz said. “Instead, people will avoid the businesses there because they think that there’s no parking available.”
By adopting the modified ordinance, Kranz explained that a private entity can ease the enforcement burden on city officers and ensure that parking regulations are vigorously enforced.
“The reality is that both the sheriff’s department and code enforcement have a lot of stuff that they’re busy with, so prioritizing writing parking tickets for them is really not in the best interests of a smooth-running city,” Kranz said. “The idea is that you contract parking enforcement out with this ordinance and that way you’re not requiring people who might be investigating other crimes to spend their time writing tickets.”
The private vendor will be primarily tasked with enforcing parking in the Encinitas 101 Main Street District and near the train station in Old Encinitas, according to Councilwoman Joy Lyndes, although it is possible the modified ordinance is extended to other parts of the city as well.
The city has not yet identified a specific vendor to enforce parking in this area. Additionally, there is no cost estimate yet available related to outside contractor services, according to the city manager’s office.
Lyndes agreed with Kranz, expressing her view that the modified ordinance will give the city a lot more flexibility and control when it comes to what she characterized as a somewhat chaotic parking situation in the downtown corridor.
“This gives us a lot more options for enforcement, and we’re not necessarily going to use it but we want those options,” Lyndes said.
During the meeting, some residents voiced support for the modified ordinance, emphasizing the inconvenience that the surge in parking violations has imposed on locals and business owners alike.
Resident Tim Bratton said that he literally can’t back out of his own driveway on some days because of people parked incorrectly all over the adjoining curb, adding that he’s contacted the sheriff’s department numerous times about the issue without any results.
Scott Campbell agreed with Bratton and said he believes enforcing parking regulations will make the downtown area safer when it comes to issues of homelessness, as well as improve the business climate.
“We have regulations that need to be enforced,” Campbell said. “If we start enforcing our overnight [vehicle] and overnight camping ordinances, it will start organically and economically helping out with our homeless situation. There are the people that are part of the problem, this will help out the people that we do want here not the people that we don’t want here.”
But not all residents supported the modification, including Joan Dodge, who shared her opposition to hiring a third-party entity to enforce the city’s parking.
“For-profit, third-party law enforcement only enrages the citizenry as the perception and reality are for-profit companies are incentivized to write more tickets for a greater return, which encourages abuse,” Dodge wrote in a public statement.
Dodge also questioned why the agenda item had no “fiscal consideration.”
“Really? Will the third party be collecting the fines and keeping them all with no remuneration to the city? Is the city not considering collecting the ticket fees as added income to the city?”
Sherry Yardley, CEO of the Encinitas Chamber of Commerce, expressed support for the modified ordinance, noting the organization has received a slew of recent complaints from local businesses frustrated with the uptick in parking violations and pleading with the city for greater enforcement.
“I think the majority of our businesses support this (ordinance),” Yardley said. “It’s something we’ve discussed with the E101 association and the city. You have parking really only being enforced in certain areas of the city up to this point, and we do get a lot of our businesses complaining because you have people parking in their areas and then going to other establishments, leaving no place for patrons to park.”
