Agenda

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Item # 5.

Council Meeting

Meeting Date:	02/08/2022
Department:	Police
Pillars:	Gold Standard in Public Safety

AGENDA CAPTION:

Consider Action on an Ordinance Revising Sec. 78-162 Authority to Remove Illegally Parked Vehicles.

BACKGROUND:

The Town recently revised the following two sections of Chapter 78 (Traffic and Vehicles) of the Town's Code of Ordinances (Code) at the January 11, 2022 Council Meeting: Sec. 78-175 (Overnight Parking of Certain Vehicles Within Residential Areas Prohibited) and Sec. 78-286 (Storage). In the process of preparing these updates, our City Attorney's office identified an additional issue with Sec. 78-162 (Illegally Parked Vehicles).

Specifically, this section of the Code only grants local authority to tow or remove illegally parked vehicles that are in violation of Sec. 78-165 (Designation of No Parking and Permitted Parking Areas) which prohibits certain on-street parking between 2am - 6am. Because no other local parking violations are identified in Sec. 78-162, the Town presently does not have general local authority to remove illegally parked vehicles under any other section of Chapter 78, including the recently updated commercial vehicle parking and storage sections and several other sections regulating parking on public and private property. This issue does not currently prevent the Town from enforcing violations through issuance of criminal citations and does not prevent removal of vehicles where state law expressly authorizes this authority (e.g., abandoned vehicles, etc.).

The revised ordinance corrects this issue by granting local authority to the Police Department, Code Enforcement or any other designee of the City Manager to tow and remove vehicles that are illegally parked in violation of Chapter 78 of the Code.

RECOMMENDATION:

Administration recommends approval.

Attachments
Ordinance - Sec 78-162
Ordinance - Sec 78-162 Redline