L.A. Plans to Grant Working Press Break on Some Parking Ordinances

Working members of Los Angeles’ news media could ignore parking meters and the restrictions of limited-time parking zones and park with impunity for up to 20 minutes in no-parking areas under a proposed city policy scheduled to be implemented within two weeks.

The parking policy would afford the news media the same courtesies already extended by the City of Los Angeles to other government agencies and public utilities.

“While the news media do not fall under the broad category of a government agency or public or private utility, and enjoy no legal exemption from parking regulations, the quasi-public service nature of their function lends itself to extending to them the same courtesies as to government agencies and utilities,” the new policy states.

“Our general manager will inform members of the City Council and the mayor that we will promulgate this policy, and then we’ll pass it on to the media and to our enforcement people in the next couple of weeks,” said city Parking Administrator Robert R. Yates, who drafted the policy.

Yates’ Department of Transportation, which took over parking enforcement functions from the Los Angeles Police Department last December, has received increasing complaints from the news media about parking tickets, he said.

Last year, there were about 1.6 million parking tickets issued in Los Angeles by 360 civilian parking enforcement officers. This year, with 80 additional officers and the Department of Transportation’s emphasis to produce more citations, the number of tickets is expected to surpass 3 million.

“The press has been caught in the same situation as everybody else,” Yates said. “We’ve been enforcing parking regulations more stringently, and they’ve been getting more tickets.”

Yates said that the new press parking policy came about after meetings with members of the Los Angeles Radio and Television News Assn. of Southern California, which represents the city’s electronic news media.

“Our microwave trucks are too big to park in the garages so we’ve been having to park them illegally on the street, and we’ve been getting tickets left and right,” said Jeff Wald, news director at television station KTLA and president of the Radio and Television News Assn. “We didn’t think it was fair, given that we’re bringing our viewers and listeners information, so we asked for some help.”

Some members of the news media contend that accepting any privilege not given the average citizen could be interpreted as a bribe of sorts. By accepting something of value from city government, they argue, a journalist’s objectivity might be compromised.

An official of the Society of Professional Journalists, Russ Tornabene, a former NBC News administrator, said he considers parking courtesies for the news media a non-controversial issue. They are, he said, “a harmless tool that the press can use to cover the story a little easier and better with the end goal of informing the public a little better.”

But while Tornabene was hesitant to criticize the proposed parking policy, the Los Angeles Police Commission president was not. Robert M. Talcott, who along with his fellow commissioners receive no official parking privileges, criticized the press parking policy as “inappropriate--period.”

“I would suggest that there is nothing so special about the mission that is carried out on a daily basis by the (news media) that would warrant exceptions,” Talcott said. “I am sure that the vast majority of the citizens of Los Angeles feel that their activities would warrant the same consideration as the news media’s. . . . Would this apply to a reporter who might be covering a beauty pageant and who is late in renewing coins in the parking meter?”

According to the policy, so long as journalists are conducting “the routine business of gathering news,” they are to be given “courtesy exemptions” from a myriad of posted parking restrictions. The types of “routine business” or assignments are not stipulated.

Working journalists in Los Angeles would not have to pay metered parking under the proposed policy. They could also ignore restrictions posted in time-limit parking zones, where parking is limited to one or more hours, and could park with impunity in preferential parking districts--usually neighborhoods where parking spaces for residents are at a premium.

In addition, reporters and cameramen could park in no-parking and commercial loading zones for a maximum of 20 minutes without being ticketed. In addition, during “major news events,” depending on the circumstances, news media personnel could even park in some no-stopping areas.

The news media would still be obligated to obey other Los Angeles parking regulations, including those which preclude parking near fire hydrants, in handicapped zones, in tow-away and taxi zones and in areas marked for street cleaning, Yates said.

In the past, the Los Angeles Police Department canceled parking citations issued to reporters and cameramen on assignment.

“We certainly did not want to have the appearance of dissuading reporters from going to police scenes,” said Cmdr. William Booth, a police spokesman. “It could be considered discouraging to covering the news if reporters spent most of their time trying to find a place to park.”

Booth estimated that about 35 such tickets were suspended annually.

But about two years ago, after members of the Los Angeles Police Commission expressed concern over the propriety of “fixing” tickets issued to the press, the Police Department began turning away reporters and cameramen whose cars and vans had been cited, Booth said.

“Because it had the appearance of (favoritism), well, the commission just felt uncomfortable with the whole idea,” Booth said.

In some major U.S. cities, most notably Chicago, Detroit and Philadelphia, members of the press are afforded virtually no formal parking courtesies. In other cities, including Dallas, Denver, Houston, New York, Phoenix and San Antonio, Tex., the news media can park with impunity only in specially designated spaces often placed near government buildings.

San Francisco’s press parking policy probably resembles most closely the one planned for Los Angeles. San Francisco Police Officer Dan Ambrose said the news media there are issued parking passes to be used when covering “late-breaking fire and police stories.” The passes provide working journalists two-hour grace periods at parking meters, among other exemptions.

“The passes won’t qualify for exclusion if you’re covering something like a basketball game,” Ambrose noted. “If you’re covering a wine tasting, I don’t think that will cover you either.”

Officials of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, meanwhile, said Wednesday that their policy of ticketing illegally parked cars--including those belonging to the press--will not be affected by any policy changes made by the city.