|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The Menlo Park Police Department will add two full-time parking enforcement employees and a records analyst as part of the city’s proposed 2025-26 fiscal year budget, which the Menlo Park City Council approved Tuesday, June 24.
The police department is the only city department slated for service-level enhancements in the upcoming fiscal year. The additions come at a total cost of $611,850 in the next fiscal year, with a recurring annual cost of $382,000.
In spring 2020, the department cut 20% of its sworn and professional staff in anticipation of decreased revenue from the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Chief of Police David Norris. The two previous parking enforcement positions were among those eliminated.
“Since 2020, we have been doing parking enforcement on a ‘per-complaint’ basis, operating without dedicated personnel. As the community continued to bounce back from the pandemic and parking downtown became more like it was before COVID, the need for daytime attention to parking has returned,” Norris said via email.
Changes won’t be immediate until parking enforcement goes before the City Council.
“I think it’s best to see (the parking enforcement officers) as providing optionality for a renewed or different approach to parking enforcement downtown. There still needs to be a policy discussion about what the approach to parking enforcement downtown will be. The plan is that there will not be a change until there’s a policy discussion and direction provided by the city council,” Mayor Drew Combs said.
The parking enforcement officers will be focused on daytime parking enforcement including on Menlo Park’s busy downtown parking lots, according to Norris. All downtown lots have a parking time limit of three hours.
While the parking enforcement officers were cut in 2020, enforcement of the overnight parking ordinance has continued. Overnight parking enforcement is conducted by two part-time parking enforcement officers.
Parking enforcement officers are non-sworn staff, meaning they do not carry weapons or hold peace officer authority. Other non-sworn positions include code enforcement officers, community service officers, dispatchers and management staff.
The new parking enforcement positions are expected to cost $200,000 annually. The department also plans to hire a records staff member at $100,000 and launch a pilot mobile CCTV program at $75,000. Half the cost of the CCTV program will be covered by the city’s bayfront mitigation fund, a special revenue source. The remaining costs will come from the general fund.
In addition, the department will receive $230,000 for reorganization of office space for professional police staff in the records unit.
The department remains seven sworn officers below its pre-pandemic staffing level. The proposed budget does not include funding for additional sworn positions.
It would be nice if council uses the income from parking tickets to repair the parking lots. They’re in terrible condition.
I wonder if they will enforce the laws in the shanty town on Bohannon street along 101?