This week, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled tire chalking unconstitutional, according to a National Public Radio report. In tire chalking, a city employee puts a chalk mark on a car’s tire and checks later to see if it has been parked longer than the posted time limit,

 

The judges said the practice violates the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. The ruling reverses an earlier U.S. District Court decision, the report said.

The lawsuit was brought against the city of Saginaw, but the ruling affects cities not only in Michigan, but Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee.

 

The ruling affects Hastings, Police Chief Jeff Pratt said.

 “The practical effect is that we will be unable to enforce parking regulations as we had previously done. We will be determining the best way to move forward after the court ruling. Parking regulations will continue to be enforced,” he said.

The chalking method was adopted in Hastings after removal of parking meters and designed to discourage downtown employees and others from parking long term in prime spots in the downtown. Those using the court system, contractors working downtown and so on should use all- day parking lots, City Manager Jeff Mansfield said.

 

A parking overtime violation brings a complimentary free pass for the first offense, then fines.

“If the same vehicle continues to accumulate tickets for repeat offenses the fines go up quite rapidly.  This was to address people who were willing to continually pay a $5 fine simply as a cost of parking downtown,” Mansfield said.

 

Since the city went to the prorated fee schedule, progressively higher fees for repeat offenders, revenues from parking fines have decreased significantly. “By the way, if the offender does not have a repeat offense for a period of time, the fee ratchets back down,” he added.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

From the perspective of the city, being in the parking enforcement business is expensive, costs considerably more to enforce parking time limits than they make in revenue from fines and a loser from a public relations perspective, he said.

 

Asked about a possible return of parking meters, Mansfield said that they hadn’t seriously looked at that.

“I have to think it would be very expensive to purchase new meters with today’s devices and we still have enforcement to deal with.  I do think that we have ways to enforce the current regulations without chalking tires.  I will defer to the chief on that.”