PARKING FINE INCREASES TAKE EFFECT IN THE CITY TODAY

Motorists who apparently didn't view seriously enough the city's minimum fine for timed-parking zone violations now face a substantially larger penalty.

New parking fines take effect in the city today, both for timed- and prohibited-parking zones. The Cape Girardeau City Council passed an ordinance for the new parking fines at its May 18 meeting.

The minimum fine for timed-parking zone violations where vehicles are allowed to park for only a specified period of time increased from $2 to $10. If the penalty is not paid within seven days, but within 30, the fine increases to $15, up from $5 before the change.

The upper-end of the fine schedule for timed-parking zone violations where the penalty is paid more than 30 days after the violation increased from $10 to $25.

Motorists who park in prohibited spaces or zones face fines of $15 if paid within seven days and fines of $25 if paid after seven days. The fines were increased from $10 and $15, respectively.

The increases for prohibited parking cover violations of handicapped-parking spaces.

Assistant City Attorney John Treu, the city prosecutor, blamed the fine increases mostly on students who commuted to Southeast Missouri State University.

Treu said the students were willing to risk getting parking tickets by violating timed zones on city streets near the university because the city's fines were cheap. Students who opted against buying a university parking permit had to get numerous $2 tickets before they approached the cost of a permit, he said.

Commuter parking permits at the university cost $35 at the start of the fall semester. The minimum fine for illegal parking on campus is $5, says a letter dated May 4 to the city council from Police Chief Howard "Butch" Boyd and City Manager J. Ronald Fischer.

Cape Girardeau Police Capt. Steve Strong said the city did have problems with motorists from other areas especially metropolitan areas with parking fees parking in no parking zones. Mostly, he said, police encountered the problem near the university, although timed parking zones can also be found in commercial areas.

"Our fines, we felt, were simply being viewed as the cost of parking. We routinely had people who got several tickets a week," he said.

Treu acknowledged he believed the congested parking at the university fed the problem. Students ticketed for the violations routinely use the excuse, he said, that parking is unavailable at the university.

City police have continually written more parking tickets per year, Strong said. At the minimum rate of $2 per ticket, he said, the fine did not cover the cost of printing and city personnel handling the ticket.

Parking tickets written in the city increased from 4,335 in 1990 to 5,011 in 1991, Strong said.

Cape Girardeau has no ordinance allowing the vehicles to be towed, Treu said. Strong said city ordinance allows a vehicle to be towed only if it's causing a traffic hazard or if it's been abandoned more than 48 hours.

Strong and Treu see the current fines as being large enough now to have an impact.

"Ten dollars to park for a couple of hours is getting expensive," Strong said. "You're not going to want to do that."

Said Treu: "I think for college students, these changes will be substantial enough."

The city council passed the ordinance raising the parking fines after two city residents living near the university complained of illegal parking on their street. Cape Girardeau police recommended amending the fines to those adopted.