Parking Ticket Disputes Move From Courts to Casual Setting : Citations: Since responsibility has shifted to cities, appeals are made to a hearing officer in conference room. Otherwise, system remains the same--pay fine or fight it.

It took just 20 seconds for Garo Akcelik to hop out of his green Acura and dash into a market for a Lotto ticket.

But when Akcelik returned to his car, another ticket awaited him--$30 for parking in a red zone.

Feeling unjustly punished, Akcelik decided to fight the citation. To his relief, the Thousand Oaks man didn’t have to face a courtroom, judge or the ticket-writing officer.

Instead, his court was a cluttered conference room at the East County Sheriff’s Station. The judge was a retired police officer.

Responding to state legislation decriminalizing parking tickets, six Ventura County cities have pooled resources to hire a part-time hearing officer to clear out a backlog of parking tickets and mete out fines.

Although more casual, the procedure allows people the same options as before: Pay the ticket or appeal. The main difference is in the transfer of responsibility from the courts to the cities.

“The system is pretty much the same, except now the cities are taking care of the entire process themselves,” said Robert S. Biery, finance director for Thousand Oaks, which is administering the program that began in July. “This was basically forced on the cities by state legislation, but it looks like it might work out to everyone’s advantage.”

Four main goals were outlined in the legislation: reduce the workload of the courts, allow cities more control and efficiency in collecting fines, eliminate the need for the citing officer to appear in court, and reduce the number of unpaid tickets.

Now, each city must tend to its own ticket problems from the time the citation is slapped on the windshield to the payment of fines or a successful appeal.

To address the new responsibilities as cheaply as possible, the cities of Thousand Oaks, Moorpark, Simi Valley, Camarillo, Ventura and Oxnard agreed to pitch in and hire a hearing officer to handle appeals once a week.

So far, program administrators say the system is running smoothly.

In Simi Valley, the city boosted parking fines by $5 to help cover the cost of the program. The cheapest ticket, for double parking or parking in a construction zone, now costs $30.

If all goes well, the city could increase its $100,000 annual ticket revenue by 10%, General Services Director John McMillan said.

“The jury is still out in terms of whether it will actually mean additional revenues,” McMillan said. “In theory, if you have the same number of citations, it would mean more money coming back to the city because our processing costs are lower.”

One big saving comes from not having to pay police officers to appear in court, McMillan said. Another saving comes from concentrating the entire operation in the city, rather than parceling it out to the courts.

Ventura Traffic Division Cmdr. Steve Bowman said his city has nothing to lose under the new system.

Notoriously lax in collecting parking fines, Ventura is owed more than $500,000 in unpaid parking tickets issued in the past three years, Bowman estimated.

“We never followed through,” Bowman said. “Somebody would get a ticket, and nothing would happen. They’d get another ticket, and nothing would happen. We never reported it to the DMV, so people didn’t take it seriously.”

From now on, Bowman said, no more Mr. Nice Guy.

In addition to hiring the hearing officer, the city has contracted with a private company to track parking tickets and collect fines. Unpaid tickets will be promptly reported to the Department of Motor Vehicles, and car registration will be blocked.

The city also hopes to collect up to half the unpaid tickets from the past three years.

But ticket recipients can always appeal, as Akcelik did.

First, he filled out an appeal form supplied by the police agency. He was notified of his date to appear before hearing officer Bill Cady.

“I just left the car for a moment. The engine was still running,” Akcelik told Cady one recent afternoon. “I know I used poor judgment, but I don’t feel I should have been so harshly punished.”

Cady was not impressed.

“I’m going to find you liable for the citation ‘stopping, standing or parking in a red zone,’ ” Cady said. “Fire zones have got to be kept open.”

Akcelik nodded. “I never really thought I’d get away without getting a ticket, but I figured I didn’t have anything to lose,” he said.