Parking Division general manager notes expense of special magistrates who conduct the hearings
It took less than 6 minutes on Dec. 2 for the Sarasota City Commission to vote unanimously to approve an increase in the fee for an appeal of a city parking citation.
The amount would rise from $7.50 to $25.
The change originally was planned to go into effect Jan. 1, 2025, Broxton Harvey, general manager of the city’s Parking Division, indicated to the board members. However, the action this week entailed the first reading of the proposed amendment to Section 33 of the City Code. A second reading will be necessary before the increase formally can go into effect, City Attorney Robert Fournier confirmed for The Sarasota News Leader in a Dec. 3 email.
Fournier wrote, “When the ordinance comes back for second reading, which is expected to be on January 6, 2025, it will provide that it becomes effective immediately upon adoption, so it will actually become effective about a week after the first of the year.”
On Dec. 2, Harvey reminded the commissioners that he had discussed multiple parking ordinance changes with the former commission on March 4. (Since then, Kathy Kelley Ohlrich defeated former Commissioner Erik Arroyo during the Nov. 5 General Election to take the District 3 seat.)
When Commissioner Jen Ahearn-Koch asked Harvey for a recap of the points related to the fee for appeals, he said that charging $7.50 does not bring in enough revenue to pay the special magistrate who handles the appeal hearings. That expense, he added is $125 an hour.
“It takes a lot of seven dollars and 50 cents [in fees] to actually cover that cost,” Harvey pointed out.
“If they win the appeal, they get reimbursed, correct?” Ahearn-Koch followed up.
“That is correct,” Harvey responded.
Vice Mayor Debbie Trice asked whether he knew how many appeals the magistrate handles. Laughing, she added, for example, “Are there 500?”
“There’re about 600 appeals annually,” he replied, “and about half of them are upheld [by the magistrate].”
When Trice asked how many appeals the magistrate deals with in a given day, Harvey told her that the typical range is two to five.
Therefore, Trice responded, even with the increase in the appeal fee to $25, the city will not fully recoup its expense for having the magistrate handle the cases.
“That is correct,” he told her.
Ohlrich said she just wanted to underscore the fact — as Ahearn-Koch already had done — that those persons who win their appeals would be reimbursed the $25 they spent.
When Mayor Liz Alpert asked for a motion, Commissioner Kyle Battie made it, calling for the increase to $25. Trice seconded it, and it passed on a 5-0 vote.