Plan Asks Printing Names of Scofflaws : Parking fines: Mayor calls for changes in state law to allow city to better collect some of the $226.6 million in unpaid tickets.

To collect more unpaid parking tickets, Los Angeles transportation officials recommended publicizing the names of the worst parking violators, and Mayor Tom Bradley called Monday for changes in state legislation that would improve the city’s ability to make scofflaws pay.

In a report to the mayor, Department of Transportation General Manager S.E. Rowe revised downward the amount of unpaid parking fines from $249 million to $226.6 million. Rowe also said 71% of the tickets issued annually are being collected.

But the mayor responded, “Los Angeles can and must do more.”

After inquiries from The Times, Bradley asked parking officials to provide information on the status of the city’s collections.

The report concluded that only $106.8 million of the $226.6 million is potentially collectible.

The remaining $119.7 million was deemed uncollectible for a number of reasons: Courts had dismissed some of the tickets, notices mailed to owners had been returned for lack of a current address, or the state Department of Motor Vehicles was unable to provide any owner registration information.

In his call for new legislation, Bradley wrote state Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles), saying that “state law currently inhibits the city of Los Angeles” from pursuing those violators.

The mayor noted that $35 million goes uncollected because the DMV does not have up-to-date driver identification information, and another $22 million is owed by people who have sold their cars but can’t be found.

“California must revise our laws to require drivers to obtain a single license plate that would stay with the driver, not the car, whenever the vehicle is sold,” Bradley said. “In other words, simply selling the car would not be a way to avoid paying parking tickets.”

Bradley also endorsed another recommendation in the parking report that would amend the state Vehicle Code to allow the city to impound or attach metal “boots” to scofflaw vehicles, even when the vehicles are located on private property.

Under current law, the boots can be applied to vehicles with five or more unpaid tickets, but only if they are on public property.

A spokesman for Roberti said the senator would consider the mayor’s requests.

The city should release for publication a “heavy hitter list” of scofflaw organizations and individuals, the report recommended.

Jay Carsman, parking ticket coordinator, said, “If these folks happen to be prominent citizens or corporations who flagrantly violate parking laws and fail to address their responsibility to deal with the tickets, then publicizing their names might help to persuade them to obey the law.”

Bradley spokesman Bill Chandler said that the mayor has not taken a position on the recommendation. “He is considering it,” Chandler said.

Parking officials also proposed expansion of the “booting and impound program to evenings and weekends, (which ) would increase revenue by approximately $600,000 per year.”

The department asked for two more booting teams, up from its present four, who would be deployed six days a week instead of five. Bradley said he had provided for one more team in his proposed budget.

The $106.8 million that parking officials described as collectible included about $11 million worth of tickets issued within the last 60 days, $633,361 incurred by out-of-state motorists who had been mailed notices, and $47 million in fines for which the DMV had placed holds on registration renewals. Under state law, owners cannot renew those registrations until the parking citations are paid.

Another $48 million in possibly collectible fines have been assigned, for a 30% commission fee, to Lockheed Information Management Services Inc. The company has held the city’s contract to process parking tickets since 1985, and won a contract amendment to do “special collections” last year.

Lockheed has collected $5.6 million in such delinquent fines.

In a letter Monday to Rowe, Bradley noted that the contract for processing and collections is up for renewal later this year, and said: “This is a perfect opportunity for the city to evaluate its parking ticket collection process. We must give top consideration to those firms with the most aggressive plan of action.”

The report described recent steps taken to improve collections from the outstanding $226.6 million. One involves new “specialized enforcement teams” that in their first three days of operation impounded 25 vehicles with 285 citations listed against them, the report said, representing $17,000 in fines.

And Lockheed, which--with parking officials’ approval--had relied only on mailed notices to delinquent violators in the “special collections” program, may pursue some of the more aggressive strategies spelled out in its city contract.

The company, the report said, “is now developing a plan to address skip-tracing requirements for violators who do not have a correct current address on file and a program for telephone contacts to debtors.”