Parking ticket fines this week jumped by $3 after the Hollister
City Council on Monday voted to offset a state bump in ticket
fines. The fine for overtime parking went from $35 to $38.
Parking ticket fines this week jumped by $3 after the Hollister City Council on Monday voted to offset a state bump in ticket fines.
California lawmakers in December increased the penalties associated with parking citations by $3 to add money to a Trial Court Trust Fund. The move left Hollister officials to consider three options: do nothing and absorb the cost of the additional penalty; raise all fines on citations by $3 to negate the impact of the increase; or increase fines on all citations by $5.
The fine for the most common violation, overtime parking, was $35 before Monday’s approval for a change. The changes are effective immediately.
The first option would have led to a revenue reduction of up to $3,355, according to a report by Hollister Police Chief Jeff Miller. Bumping fines by $5 per ticket, on the other hand, could have led to a revenue increase of up to $2,205.
Downtown parking enforcement resumed in 2009 after a six-year hiatus. The city then put the enforcement – which had generated about 100 tickets per month – on hold in August 2010 after the second of two temporary parking attendants fulfilled their commitments.
In February of this year, the city announced it hired an attendant for downtown parking enforcement and began issuing warning tickets for overtime parking before fully re-implementing the program.
