The city of San Mateo is suspending enforcement for meters, sweet sweeping, residential parking permits and expired registration starting Tuesday, April 7, because of the COVID-19 health crisis, according to officials.
Parking enforcement will continue for construction zones; red zones; fire hydrants; parking in a crosswalk; blocking a handicapped access ramp; parking on a sidewalk, in a handicapped zone, the wrong way and blocking a driveway. Parking enforcement is not limited to these actions, officials added.
Abandoned vehicle abatement will continue but will be driven by complaint. If sheltering in place, the owner may contact the city’s abandoned vehicle hotline to have the warning removed, otherwise the enforcement will stand. When calling, please include your name, phone number, vehicle description with license plate and date, time and location of the vehicle at the time of the warning. The Abandoned Vehicle Hotline is (650) 522-7766.
It turns out that our local government and business leaders outsourced parking enforcement to a British Company. This is from their website. Serco is a FTSE top 250 company managing over 500 contracts worldwide. Employing over 50,000 people, we operate internationally across four geographies: UK & Europe, North America, Asia Pacific and the Middle East and across five sectors: Defence, Justice & Immigration, Transport, Health and Citizen Services.
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Of course this company doesn't care about its local community. Vote our current local politicians out of office , that is the only recourse we have.
We received a ticket for an expired tag. It's a "fix-it" ticket, which we are somehow supposed to get an officer to sign for us after getting our Smog checked... within the next 21 days. There were other cars on our block issues tickets the day before the policy changed. I feel like they went out and distributed as many tickets as possible before making this announcement.
Yesterday, on nextdoor, a user asked "Officer, Can the tickets received in the past month be waived?". Officer Haobsh from SMPD replied "The direction we've received is this is effective today, April 7th."
So, in short, even though they realized they shouldn't be ticketing people for some things, they are still sticking it to the lucky people who already got tickets.
Also, when I called smpd and mentioned that I couldn't resolve one of my tickets while obeying shelter in place, they said that I should disobey the shelter in place because they aren't enforcing it.
So, in short, they consider parking enforcement to be critical, while shelter in place enforcement to not be critical.
Additionally, a user on nextdoor asked the PD "Officer, Can the tickets received in the past month be waived?", and Officer Haobsh replied: "The direction we've received is this is effective today, April 7th.", so people who were ticketed for 72 hour parking during the earlier parts of the shutdown, will still be on the hook for paying their tickets.
And many people aren't going outside often to see the tickets, so it is very easy to miss the 21 day window to contest it if you feel the need. Our ticket was put, in the middle of a rain storm, in a paper envelope on the windshield of my wife's car -- if I hadn't happened to notice it later that day, the ticket would have likely disintegrated into nothing.
For what it's worth, they didn't fully change the parking. Yesterday, I received a ticket for parking in the alleyway behind our house.
Two tickets actually, one for a car, one for a trailer. The trailer...sure, a gray area, it was parked a bit into the alley way. Anyways, officer haobsh from the SMPD said "Parking in an alleyway is illegal. Thank you in advance for moving your vehicles. "
We moved the car, but I also have a trailer that got ticketed. And the storage yards that would host the trailer, are all closed due to the shutdown. I called the PD to ask what I should do, they said I should move the trailer. When I mentioned that during the shutdown there are very few options for where to move it, except perhaps to my parents' place in El Dorado Hills, the PD said that they are not enforcing the shelter in place ordinances, and I should move the trailer regardless. So now I'm trying to figure out how to juggle, while doing a full time work from home job and taking care of a 1 year old kid, how to also find time to drive a few hundred miles in the middle of a shutdown to move this trailer. It's not blocking the alley, trucks can get through, and the alley has been used for similar purposes for longer than the 5+ years I've been here.
Instead of launching a new enforcement regime with warnings or notices, they instead just jumped to ticketing. And the PD said they can repeatedly ticket, even during the shutdown, until the issue is resolved.
Take Action Against our Local Government Folks!!!!! So on the 6th , I went Draegers to get my groceries and stock up for a 2 week supply of food based on Dr Fauci's recommendation to not leave the house for the next two weeks. I parked on the street as to avoid all the people since we are in a Pandemic. Draegers would not give me change or cash because we are in a Pandemic. I put money in the meter but it took forever to get my groceries , way longer than expected. I come out and they gave me not one ticket for a meter violation but three tickets. One for the meter, one for not having a front plate and not parking within 18" of the curve. $46, $42, $46. Something is obviously wrong with this picture. So we called the San Mateo Police. on the ticket and it turns out that City Council decided to outsource their parking enforcement program a while back. This is what you get when you have incompetent people in our Local Government. I will be on a crusade to find out who these people are that allowed this to happen and make sure that I spread the word within our community to vote out the folks out of office that outsourced our local parking enforcement . They are harassing citizens in a time when we are all stressed out about our jobs and our future. Go on next door , and look at the comments. Yesterday Parking Enforcement moved off the downtown grid to harass people and generate revenue to our neighborhoods. Is this really the right thing to do to our citizens of Sam Mateo while we are in a Pandemic??? I have left my house only 4 times since Friday the 13th to try do the right thing for myself , my family , my neighbors and society as a whole and San Mateo has outsourced Parking Enforcement which is non essential profit center with no ties to our community and potentially infecting our vehicles and community. How does this happen ? Vote to get rid of all incumbents Folks, if you don't know who is behind outsourcing parking enforcement, It is that simple. Someone from local government please respond to this , I know you read this paper to stay in tune to the local vibe so you can get re-elected. I would love to hear your thoughts.
Thank you San Mateo for listening to the citizens of our city, doing the right thing for our community, and solving this parking enforcement situation by dismissing or refunding citations issued between March 17 - April 8, 2020. It is really nice to know to that we live in a city where the local newspaper publishes an article about a current situation and the local government listens and has empathy for its citizens. Thank You
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(8) comments
It turns out that our local government and business leaders outsourced parking enforcement to a British Company. This is from their website. Serco is a FTSE top 250 company managing over 500 contracts worldwide. Employing over 50,000 people, we operate internationally across four geographies: UK & Europe, North America, Asia Pacific and the Middle East and across five sectors: Defence, Justice & Immigration, Transport, Health and Citizen Services.
.
.
Of course this company doesn't care about its local community. Vote our current local politicians out of office , that is the only recourse we have.
We received a ticket for an expired tag. It's a "fix-it" ticket, which we are somehow supposed to get an officer to sign for us after getting our Smog checked... within the next 21 days. There were other cars on our block issues tickets the day before the policy changed. I feel like they went out and distributed as many tickets as possible before making this announcement.
Yesterday, on nextdoor, a user asked "Officer, Can the tickets received in the past month be waived?". Officer Haobsh from SMPD replied "The direction we've received is this is effective today, April 7th."
So, in short, even though they realized they shouldn't be ticketing people for some things, they are still sticking it to the lucky people who already got tickets.
Also, when I called smpd and mentioned that I couldn't resolve one of my tickets while obeying shelter in place, they said that I should disobey the shelter in place because they aren't enforcing it.
So, in short, they consider parking enforcement to be critical, while shelter in place enforcement to not be critical.
Additionally, a user on nextdoor asked the PD "Officer, Can the tickets received in the past month be waived?", and Officer Haobsh replied: "The direction we've received is this is effective today, April 7th.", so people who were ticketed for 72 hour parking during the earlier parts of the shutdown, will still be on the hook for paying their tickets.
And many people aren't going outside often to see the tickets, so it is very easy to miss the 21 day window to contest it if you feel the need. Our ticket was put, in the middle of a rain storm, in a paper envelope on the windshield of my wife's car -- if I hadn't happened to notice it later that day, the ticket would have likely disintegrated into nothing.
For what it's worth, they didn't fully change the parking. Yesterday, I received a ticket for parking in the alleyway behind our house.
Two tickets actually, one for a car, one for a trailer. The trailer...sure, a gray area, it was parked a bit into the alley way. Anyways, officer haobsh from the SMPD said "Parking in an alleyway is illegal. Thank you in advance for moving your vehicles. "
We moved the car, but I also have a trailer that got ticketed. And the storage yards that would host the trailer, are all closed due to the shutdown. I called the PD to ask what I should do, they said I should move the trailer. When I mentioned that during the shutdown there are very few options for where to move it, except perhaps to my parents' place in El Dorado Hills, the PD said that they are not enforcing the shelter in place ordinances, and I should move the trailer regardless. So now I'm trying to figure out how to juggle, while doing a full time work from home job and taking care of a 1 year old kid, how to also find time to drive a few hundred miles in the middle of a shutdown to move this trailer. It's not blocking the alley, trucks can get through, and the alley has been used for similar purposes for longer than the 5+ years I've been here.
Instead of launching a new enforcement regime with warnings or notices, they instead just jumped to ticketing. And the PD said they can repeatedly ticket, even during the shutdown, until the issue is resolved.
Take Action Against our Local Government Folks!!!!! So on the 6th , I went Draegers to get my groceries and stock up for a 2 week supply of food based on Dr Fauci's recommendation to not leave the house for the next two weeks. I parked on the street as to avoid all the people since we are in a Pandemic. Draegers would not give me change or cash because we are in a Pandemic. I put money in the meter but it took forever to get my groceries , way longer than expected. I come out and they gave me not one ticket for a meter violation but three tickets. One for the meter, one for not having a front plate and not parking within 18" of the curve. $46, $42, $46. Something is obviously wrong with this picture. So we called the San Mateo Police. on the ticket and it turns out that City Council decided to outsource their parking enforcement program a while back. This is what you get when you have incompetent people in our Local Government. I will be on a crusade to find out who these people are that allowed this to happen and make sure that I spread the word within our community to vote out the folks out of office that outsourced our local parking enforcement . They are harassing citizens in a time when we are all stressed out about our jobs and our future. Go on next door , and look at the comments. Yesterday Parking Enforcement moved off the downtown grid to harass people and generate revenue to our neighborhoods. Is this really the right thing to do to our citizens of Sam Mateo while we are in a Pandemic??? I have left my house only 4 times since Friday the 13th to try do the right thing for myself , my family , my neighbors and society as a whole and San Mateo has outsourced Parking Enforcement which is non essential profit center with no ties to our community and potentially infecting our vehicles and community. How does this happen ? Vote to get rid of all incumbents Folks, if you don't know who is behind outsourcing parking enforcement, It is that simple. Someone from local government please respond to this , I know you read this paper to stay in tune to the local vibe so you can get re-elected. I would love to hear your thoughts.
Thank you San Mateo for listening to the citizens of our city, doing the right thing for our community, and solving this parking enforcement situation by dismissing or refunding citations issued between March 17 - April 8, 2020. It is really nice to know to that we live in a city where the local newspaper publishes an article about a current situation and the local government listens and has empathy for its citizens. Thank You
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Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Anyone violating these rules will be issued a warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be revoked.