Union Tells of Meter Citation Quota

Union leaders charged Monday that city officials expect San Diego’s parking meter technicians to “fill a quota” for writing parking citations in addition to their regular duties--installing and repairing meters, and collecting money from them.

“It’s mandatory that our members give out at least 10 tickets a day. I call that a quota,” said Stanley G. Robinson, president of the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees, Local 127.

Under a policy that went into effect Sept. 10, the city’s seven meter technicians were given the added task--while making their regular rounds--of writing tickets for expired meters.

Robinson and other Local 127 leaders said they learned about the quotas while reviewing annual performance evaluations of city employees by supervisors. One evaluation reviewed by The Times showed that “standards” imposed by the city required workers to “average 10 citations per day.”

Dave Wood, deputy director of the city’s Department of General Services, acknowledged that meter technicians are expected to write at least 10 tickets a day but denied that the standard represents a quota. It was Wood who developed and instituted the program.

Technicians are required to issue citations if they see an expired meter while tending to their other duties. Previously, parking citations were issued almost exclusively by the Police Department’s parking enforcement officers, who are a familiar sight downtown scurrying around in their scooters.

“It’s not a quota. When everybody else can write more than 10, and you can only write less than that, you’re just not working,” Wood said. “There are certain reasonable standards. People who complain (about writing a minimum of 10 tickets) are walking by meters that expire. . . . If you can’t write 10 tickets a day, you’re not cutting it.”

Wood said he would consider it “insubordination” if an employee refused to issue 10 tickets a day.

According to Wood, technicians have written about 200 tickets a week since the new policy went into effect. The city hopes to collect $125,000 to $130,000 a year from the additional citations, he added.

“As long as we’re out there, why not? . . . It doesn’t take that much time. It’s just a supplemental enforcement effort. It’s cost-effective,” Wood said.

Wood said he has not received any complaints from the union, but conceded that the technicians are unhappy about their new duties.

They “became more hesitant with time,” he said. “They felt they were being given an extra task. That’s life.”

Ed Lehman, Local 127’s business agent, complained that city officials arbitrarily expanded the workers’ job description.

“The city never came to us to tell us they were planning to initiate these new job duties . . . not that we would ever agree to a quota system,” Lehman said.

The union has requested a 20% pay increase to compensate the workers for their new job responsibilities.

Robinson said that having to issue parking citations has made the job more dangerous for technicians: “Our people already have to deal with irate citizens when they get ticketed because of a faulty meter.

“Now they want us to cite them too. All this plus pushing around large amounts of money has made the job much more hazardous.”

He added that meter technicians are unarmed but carry two-way radios. However, the radios link them to a city office, not the Police Department. By contrast, parking enforcement officers carry radios that link them to police.

Janet Reyman, supervisor of the Police Department’s parking enforcement detail, said police endorsed the city’s plans to have meter technicians issue citations and helped train them. However, Reyman also acknowledged that there have been minor problems with the program.

“There is some overlap because they’re issuing tickets on the same meters we enforce,” she said. “There have been occasions when their employee and our officer arrive at the same meter at the same time, or our officer is five or 10 minutes behind. Other than that, it (new program) really hasn’t made that much difference.”

Reyman said it is not uncommon in smaller cities for meter technicians to also issue parking citations. But Robinson said a check by the union showed that San Diego is the only major city in the state where meter workers are also authorized to give parking tickets.