Valley Stream erasing hand-written tickets
If you’ve gotten a parking ticket in Valley Stream lately, you’ve probably noticed it looks a bit different. The village has purchased four hand-held machines to electronically generate tickets, essentially replacing hand-written tickets.
Village officials say the purpose is to increase revenue as well as automate the process for the Code Enforcement department and village court. Deputy Village Clerk Robert Fumagalli noted that many tickets have been thrown out over the years because information was illegible or incomplete.
In the 2008-09 fiscal year, 32,900 parking tickets were issued in Valley Stream. The average fine was $44. In 2009-10, 31,250 tickets were issued averaging fines of $51. Each year, 15 percent of those tickets were dismissed. Fumagalli said that combined, the village lost out on about $450,000 in revenue.
With tickets generated by a hand-held electronic machine, only 3 percent are thrown out in court, based on averages from other municipalities. Fumagalli said that over a five-year period, the village could make an additional $1.2 million.
The village began using the machines in March. Each code enforcement officer, when ending a shift, can come back to the office and simply download the information onto the computer. No longer do the officers have to log, by hand, every ticket they’ve issued for the day. “It could take a half-hour to 45 minutes a day,” said Sal Costanzo, the director of Code Enforcement, adding that now the officers can spend more time out in the field enforcing the rules.
Code Enforcement Officer Joe Sottile said that if he has to issue multiple tickets for one vehicle, the devices stores the car’s information so he doesn’t have to keep entering it, such as the vehicle make, model and license plate number. It also saves the number of a parking field if he is issuing tickets to several cars in one location. And his signature is already in the machine. “It takes about 10 seconds to do a ticket,” he said.
All Sottile has to do is go through the list of violations, already programmed on the machines, and check off the correct one. It also automatically puts the date and time onto the ticket which is then printed out.
The ticket that a driver receives also shows the late fees if they fail to pay it on time. Typically, fines double after 30 days and triple after 60 days.
Village Justice Bob Bogle, whose court has already started to see these new tickets come in, said it will improve accuracy. He noted that it eliminates discrepancies based on handwriting. “Many times, a ‘6’ looks likes a small ‘b’ for example,” he said. “People write different ways.”
Bogle said that Valley Stream is in the first wave of villages in the state to begin using these new hand-held machines.
If a code enforcement officer needs further proof for court, the ticket machines also have a camera so they can document the violation, as well as a voice recorder. It also can determine where the valve stems are on a vehicle’s tires to see if it has moved or not, because there is a four-hour parking limit on village streets.
The new machines cost $4,500 a piece, but half of the cost was picked up by the village’s collection agency, which handles all tickets that are not paid on time.
Mayor Ed Fare noted that the parking regulations are not just about earning money for the village. He said there are safety and quality of life reasons for all of the rules.
