Santa Rosa bumps parking ticket to $30

<p>Those promising never to shop in downtown Santa Rosa after getting hit with a $25 parking ticket will have an extra $5 incentive to stick by their pledge.</p><p>The City Council agreed Tuesday to raise the cost of tickets for expired parking meters and overtime parking violations to $30 and said they may raise it even more once a study on downtown parking policies and rates is completed over the next 60 to 90 days.</p><p>The parking department's original had proposed hiking fines for expired meters and timed parking violations to $40.</p><p>Deputy Parking Director Cheryl Woodward said the $5 increase, which will also be added to 58 other parking-related fines, will be implemented in October.</p><p>The council unanimously agreed to impose the increase despite its expected unpopularity because the state has raised the amount of money it takes from every parking ticket from $4.50 to $9.50</p><p>Woodward said without the increase the city's cash-strapped general fund would lose $200,000 to the state every year.</p><p>Woodward said the city issues around 40,000 parking tickets annually, 90 percent of them for expired meters or overtime parking.</p><p>Santa Rosa, the only Sonoma County city with parking meters, has drawn the wrath of shoppers, some of whom say they will never return to the downtown after getting tagged with a parking ticket.</p><p>Most other cities, except for Rohnert Park and Windsor, charge for overtime parking in amounts that range from $20 in Sebastopol and Cotati to $40 in Sonoma.</p><p>Williard Richards, a proponent of new parking strategies he thinks will entice more people downtown, suggested the council hold off raising any fines until the economy turns around, a time frame that could be several years.</p><p>“It will cause even more people to write letters that they won't shop downtown,” he said.</p><p>Chris Messina, executive director for Santa Rosa Main Street, a downtown lobbying group, said his membership “was all over the board” on the issue.</p><p>If the city does eventually raise all parking fines to $40, he suggested that the extra $10 “be re-invested in the downtown” through promotions, weekly events and physical improvements.</p><p>Woodward said the Sonoma County Parking Consortium, an informal group of all the county's cities, had recommended adopting uniform fines to avoid angry motorists “pitting” cities against each other.</p><p>But only the county and of Sonoma, so far, have raised their fines to $40.</p><p>Woodward said the discussion of raising the fines to $40 will have to wait until the review of parking policies and rates is completed.</p><p>While that study is expected to be completed in 90 days, she said the issue won't come before the council until early 2010.</p><p>“I would not want to have this conversation during the upcoming holiday season,” she said.</p>