Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, July 26, 1994 TAG: 9407270021
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
If City Council approves, the tongue-twister will be Roanoke's newest weapon in a perennial battle against tax cheats who fail to pay the annual levy on their cars.
City police already have ordered the $25 tickets, Finance Director James Grisso told council Monday. Officers could begin using them as soon as Nov. 1, he said.
"In effect, we're going to start issuing parking tickets for vehicles downtown which do not have stickers," Grisso said.
The tickets are authorized by a compact reached earlier this year among Roanoke, Roanoke County, Salem and Vinton. In essence, the agreement allows police in each jurisdiction to ticket a car without a decal if the car is registered in any of those areas.
The parking tickets already are being issued by police in Salem and Roanoke County, spokesmen for those departments said. But a glitch in the city code allows city police to hand them out only to drivers.
"Now, the way the code is written ... we have to catch the [non-stickered] car moving," city police Major Don Shields said.
The personal property tax is a major revenue source for the city, bringing in more than any other levy except for real estate taxes. This year, it is expected to add $15 million to the city's general fund.
If state Department of Motor Vehicle records are an indication, thousands of cars in the Roanoke Valley do not have stickers.
The City Treasurer's office has sold 67,037 decals this year. But DMV records list 70,805 cars and light trucks as registered in the city as of June 30, meaning there are as many as 3,768 registered cars and pickup trucks on which the taxes are unpaid.
Roanoke County has issued 64,059 decals. DMV records show 69,371 cars and pickups are registered there - potentially 5,312 untaxed vehicles. County police there already have issued 459 decal violations to parked cars since February, Assistant Chief Jack McCorkle said.
The issue should come before council as part of an ordinance change in September, Grisso said.
Council seemed inclined to favor the concept, provided the tickets are issued only to cars registered in the Roanoke Valley compact areas.
"I don't want to be in the position of discouraging someone from [outside the area] coming here and spending some money," Councilman John Parrott said.
Hooper said police would check registrations before issuing the parking tickets.
A motorist receiving a decal violation would have to pay the overdue personal property tax and the $25 fine to satisfy the ticket. If the motorist did not pay within 10 days, he or she could be summoned to court and ordered to pay the tax and fine, plus court costs, Grisso said.
In other action, council:
nUnanimously approved a $500,000 payment to the Roanoke Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau for marketing Roanoke as a tourist and conference destination. A total of $60,000 of that will go toward advertising the Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center in convention publications.
nUnanimously agreed that construction bid openings would be performed by people designated by the city manager, rather than before council. The new practice would allow for better timing of bid solicitations so the city could get the lowest prices on construction contracts, City Manager Bob Herbert said.
by CNB