Uniontown council begins overhaul of city parking
Uniontown City Council on Wednesday made several moves in an attempt to begin the process of overhauling the city’s parking ticket system.
Council hired Melvin Mills to the new position of parking enforcement supervisor and also authorized city clerk Kim Marshall to seek an outside collection agency to attempt to collect unpaid parking tickets.
Mills was hired by a 3-2 vote, with councilmen Blair Jones and Gary Gearing opposing the hiring. He will earn $10 an hour and work a maximum of 30 hours per week. Mills will work with local business owners and residents to assuage parking concerns and oversee the current parking officers.
Council voted unanimously to authorize Marshall to explore hiring an outside collection agency.
Police Chief Jason A. Cox said that he has started reviewing the city’s parking ordinance as well as parking tickets and is working in conjunction with council, city solicitor J.W. Eddy and Uniontown Magisterial District Judge Michael M. Metros to develop changes to the ordinance and the tickets in an effort to bring greater uniformity to metered parking in the city and to ensure collection of fines levied for illegal parking.
“We are working on creating a program to make our parking ticket system more efficient and also help us to be able to enforce the tickets through changes to the ticket itself as well as the ordinance,” Cox said.
According to Cox, the discussion about parking meter and parking ticket problems has escalated in recent months after the city’s two parking officers moved their hub of operations from the police department to city hall.
He said that additionally, one of the parking officers is now on extended medical leave and said that with meters in disrepair in some places as well as other inconsistencies, the overhaul is the only way to ensure the city receives payment of fines and provide fairness for those parking in the city.
Cox said that in addition to the city’s plan to try and collect old parking ticket fines through a collection agency, the new program would include an all-new parking ticket with stiffer penalties for illegal parking and would also result in a warrant being issued for the offender should they fail to make payment within a set time frame.
“We can’t attack the tickets issued in the past from a legal standpoint, but we are working to establish a new ordinance and new parking ticket that will give us the ability to take additional actions for unpaid fines in the future,” Cox said.
The discussions about parking tickets and city parking in general coincided with representatives from two city businesses — DiMarco’s Bistro and Cantina and Trinity Tattoo Studio — being in attendance to express their concern with parking issues, including some meters charging a higher rate than others.
“This city needs to be more structured when it comes to parking,” Councilman Philip Michael said. “We are trying to be fair, but there are issues here that have to be dealt with.”
Michael noted that he hopes that the overhaul of parking can be implemented by January or February.