Burbank police testing parking-enforcement tech that photographs license plates

Burbank police are considering implementing an electronic parking-enforcement system that would eliminate the need for parking-control officers to manually mark cars with chalk to enforce parking regulations.

The system — which would cost $104,000 plus an additional $15,000 annually for maintenance for two vehicles — involves the installation of multiple cameras in the parking-control vehicles that would capture license plate information as well as photographs of parked cars and their GPS coordinates, according to a city report.

When the officer drives by again, the system will alert him or her if a car is parked in one spot longer than the posted limit, said Burbank Police Chief Scott LaChasse.

A pilot program to evaluate the effectiveness of the system is slated to start next month, he added.

Officials say the time-saving measure would increase efficiency because the system processes the data at the average road speed without requiring the parking-control officer to slow down and mark the cars with chalk manually using a stick from the car, a decades-old enforcement method.

“Our desire would be for people just to voluntarily comply with all the parking regulations,” LaChasse said. “Just like everything else, it’s less painful and more effective that way.”

Parking enforcement has been a contentious issue in Burbank, especially in Magnolia Park, where merchants have complained about what they perceive as a lack of parking enforcement that encourages patrons to overstay, preventing other would-be customers from parking near the businesses they plan to visit.

Currently, the city employs 10 parking-control officers and one supervisor, with officers on duty from 7 a.m. to 7:45 p.m. on weekdays, and 10 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. on weekends, according to the report. Once a week, a parking officer works an overnight shift.

A parking study conducted in the 3400 block of Magnolia Boulevard in January suggested that over a period of one month — or 16 shifts in that area because it is not patrolled every day — more than 1,100 vehicles were marked with chalk, and officers found just one citable violation.

There used to be more parking enforcers, but since 2009, the city has cut two parking-control officers positions — one each during two past budget reductions.

However, over the last two years, the number of citations issued has increased, while there’s been no additional officers. In 2014, parking officers issued 50,355 parking citations, up from 49,265 the year before.