City Quietly OKs Raising Parking Fines : Government: Council adopts a cryptic item on the agenda that changes how ticket money is collected and doubles penalties for some.

The cost of parking illegally in Culver City is about to go way up.

Ever so quietly, members of the Culver City Council on Monday followed a path blazed last month by their counterparts in Santa Monica: After a brief discussion, they adopted a cryptic item on the agenda that mentioned parking fines almost in passing. The list of increases was contained in an addendum distributed only to council members.

The law, which takes effect July 1, transfers the collection and appeals process for parking violations from the criminal courts to a civil system jointly administered by Culver City, Santa Monica, West Hollywood and Beverly Hills.

Council members and Police Chief Ted Cooke said the new system will streamline bureaucracy and improve enforcement.

Oh, and by the way, it will double the city’s revenue from parking fines, to about $1 million a year.

The measure raises the fine for parking at an expired meter to $36, from $17. Other $17 violations that will more than double include disregarding time restrictions in one-hour or two-hour parking zones, parking outside painted lines or parking more than 18 inches from the curb. The violation for parking illegally in a space designated for the disabled will jump from $102 to $280.

The fine for parking on streets when they are scheduled for sweeping--a violation committed far more often by residents than visitors--will rise only slightly, to $38 from $30.

Mayor Mike Balkman insisted that making more money was not the main reason for the council’s unanimous support of the measure. He said a revenue figure was never mentioned during the five-minute discussion.

Balkman acknowledged that the item could have been more clearly explained on the condensed agenda, which is published in local papers and recorded for an agenda hot line. The one-paragraph description made no mention of increasing parking fines.

“Maybe that needed to be clarified, but I don’t know if that would have changed anything,” he said, noting that the expanded version of the agenda is available.

He added: “It’s done, and I’d like to move on from here. I think it’s fair. I don’t think we’ve done anything dastardly or horrible.”

For four months, the Westside cities have been working to set up a centralized operation to handle parking tickets in response to new state laws designed to remove parking violations from the clogged criminal court system.

Ticketed motorists will still be able to appeal through a hearing process. “They’ll just be dealing with a different set of people,” Cooke said.

Fine amounts are the same for all four participating Westside cities, and were set in the middle range of fines charged by other cities in Los Angeles County, Cooke said.

Bob Norquist, finance officer for Culver City, said the new system is expected to double parking-violation revenue to about $1 million a year from the current $500,000. That would help the city deal with a budget gap for the 1993-94 fiscal year estimated at $2 million, which will have to be closed by some combination of increased revenue and reduced spending.

Police expect to issue about 51,600 parking tickets next year, officials said.

The council’s action Monday night was so stealthy it almost got by one of the city’s most vigilant City Hall observers, gadfly C. B. Smith.

Smith, who said he supports the higher fines, was unaware that they were in the works. It was not until the council meeting that he realized what was afoot.

“Until you sat there and listened to it, you wouldn’t know what was going on,” he said. “If I had been against it, I would have been upset.”