DATE: Wednesday, October 1, 1997            TAG: 9710010462

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B9   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   73 lines

NORFOLK MOVES TOWARD PRIVATIZING PARKING-FINE DUTY BUT THE COUNCIL DELAYED GIVING THE FIRM THE AUTHORITY TO ACTUALLY WRITE TICKETS.

The City Council took half a step Tuesday toward getting out of the parking ticket business.

Council members directed city staff to begin negotiations with a private company, Fairfax-based Sands Management Systems, to take over the job of collecting parking fines.

But the council delayed giving the firm the authority to actually write tickets.

City officials had proposed going private with both collections and enforcement, including writing tickets.

But some council members said they were worried that a private company would have a profit motive to write more tickets, especially downtown, and that could scare off shoppers the city is trying to attract.

``You can put in all the customer-friendly policies you want, but you're not going to do this for nothing,'' Mayor Paul D. Fraim said.

Added Vice Mayor Herbert M. Collins Sr.: ``I think what we're doing downtown is so important we don't need to send any signal that downtown is unfriendly.''

But council members left the door open to later turning over enforcement.

While Sands has contracted with a number of cities to collect fines, it has never been involved in enforcement, officials said.

The city expects to save about $197,000 by turning over collections to Sands, said Iris Jessie, an assistant city manager. Most of that will come from salaries now paid to six city employees who work in the parking operations office. Those employees will be offered jobs by Sands or be absorbed into other positions within city government, she said.

Officials said the city will be guaranteed at least $1.4 million under the deal, the amount of net revenue in fines generated during the last fiscal year.

Sands officials estimate they'll generate at least $400,000 more in revenue by aggressively pursuing current fines and an estimated $1.5 million in delinquent fines.

The city's collection rate on fines is about 63 percent. Robert Lesando, a Sands executive, estimated that his company could increase that to 67 percent.

Under the deal, Sands would provide the city's meter monitors with hand-held computers capable of tracking the license plates of parking violators. Eventually, the sophisticated computers could allow the city to be more sensitive in its parking policies, Jessie said, including providing the means to issue warnings to first-time offenders - something impossible under the manual system the city now operates.

Additionally, the computer system will allow the city to easily track when, where and what kind of parking tickets are issued, meaning policies could be fine-tuned to address concerns raised by some downtown merchants about inconsistent enforcement.

Also, the system will help with collections, issuing periodic notices to delinquents and enabling the firm to trace license plates nationwide through Department of Motor Vehicles records.

Lesando said the company would turn hard-core delinquents over to collection agencies, seek deductions in state tax refunds and issue judgments against unresponsive offenders.

``That judgment will appear on your credit report,'' Lesando said. ``It's a real pain in the butt, and a lot of people don't want to tolerate that.''

The city's move to go private has angered some downtown merchants, who argue that the city has failed to adequately address parking concerns.

``This proposal has been forwarded without organized input from downtown merchants, and this lack of input is symptomatic of what separates Norfolk from successful downtown cities,'' Donald Hornstein, a member of the Downtown District Association, a group of more than 65 businesses, told the council Tuesday.

He said later: ``It's amazing that the city gets so far in the development with these ideas before we hear about them. They paint themselves in a corner, and then citizens are left with a three-minute comment period at the end.'' KEYWORDS: PARKING TICKETS NORFOLK CITY COUNCIL

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