LETTER: Let City Police Ticket Private Parking Violators
August 14, 2010
TO THE EDITORS OF THE FALLS CHURCH TIMES:
We live in a small townhouse community with both guest and assigned parking for residents. We recently have had some issues where guests were parking in resident spaces. The board of our homeowners’ association was asked to find a resolution. I was interested to find that our only recourse is to have the offending parties towed. There is no ordinance under which an Falls Church police officer could site someone for parking in an assigned spot.
The Falls Church City Police Department and the City staffs have been exceedingly helpful in developing and implementing a towing policy and we wanted to thank them. However, it would be so much simpler to call the City and have an officer issue a ticket. There would be no issues of predatory towing, the City would receive the fines, and simply turning on the patrol car flashers at night would bring the vehicle owner running. There is already an ordinance for Resident Parking Permits that applies to on-street parking. This could be extended to communities with common, assigned parking areas such as ours.
JAN HERTZSCH
Falls Church
Letters to the Editor should be submitted to contact@fallschurchtimes.com. They may be on any subject relevant to our City. Writers should include their full name and city of residence. All submissions are subject to editing.
By Falls Church Times Staff
August 14, 2010
If this was easy I suspect it would have been done. Our current parking enforcement officer is part time and fills every minute of the hours he has in the Police budget. Not sure about regular officers. A good question for the Chief.
Private property vs public property
Do we really want to make the line between the two that fuzzy?
Jan, maybe you will find a receptive ear from Mr. Snyder? See item #7 of his 100 day plan posted recently.
I understand that it can be a misdemeanor to enter upon the property of another without permission, if an appropriate sign forbidding such entry has been posted.
See, for example, http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+18.2-119 and http://virginiacriminallawyers.vatrafficlaw.com/pages/trespass.html which discusses the relevant statute.
Under the facts you allege, someone parking in your space may well be trespassing, and be in violation of the law. (There has to be an appropriate sign.)
The police should be willing to respond in some way on the basis of your complaint.