City May Hire Private Company to Issue Tickets : Parking: Internal memo targets region as a prime area to implement traffic enforcement program. Some question plan’s fairness.

Los Angeles city officials have singled out the Westside for a no-nonsense traffic enforcement program, under which a private contractor using high-tech hardware would start issuing parking tickets this summer.

The proposal, outlined in an internal City Hall memo, has caused consternation among merchants and others, who fear a private firm would become predatory and unforgiving as it hustled to outperform city traffic enforcement officers in hopes of winning a long-term contract.

“I think we want to make sure that motorists are being treated fairly,” said Alice Bisno, an official with the Automobile Club of Southern California.

The details of the proposal, which requires City Council approval, were spelled out in a Nov. 22 memo to City Administrative Officer Keith Comrie from Thomas Conner, then-acting assistant general manager for the city Department of Transportation.

The six-page memo cited the western area of the city as the best location for the pilot program because it “possesses the full range of parking restrictions” and is a rich source of parking ticket revenue.

“The Western area accounts for approximately 20% of our enforcement staff and issues approximately 24% of the citations issued citywide,” Conner wrote. “It is the highest producing area per Traffic Officer.”

The memo suggests employing vehicle locater systems so supervisors can track vehicles and quickly deploy them as needed throughout the Western area--a territory bounded by Imperial Highway, Mulholland Drive, La Brea Avenue and Pacific Coast Highway.

It also recommends supplementing full-time employees with part-timers to achieve greater flexibility. Additionally, enforcement personnel would be equipped with $3,000 hand-held electronic ticket writers.

City officials stressed that the proposal--expected to be submitted in preliminary form to the City Council late this week--is not an attempt to punish Westsiders, but is a way to determine if privatization of traffic enforcement is feasible citywide.

“Unless you set up head-to-head competition (between the public and private sectors) you don’t get these types of comparisons,” Comrie said.

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Moreover, officials insisted that the goal of the program is not necessarily to write more tickets, but to match current production at a lower cost.

“We’re not proposing to pay the contractor based on the number of citations they write,” said Bob Yates, general manager for the Department of Transportation.

But others remained skeptical about the plan, announced after Mayor Richard Riordan ordered all department heads to submit proposals for privatizing various city services. Riordan already is exploring privatizing Los Angeles International Airport and the Penmar Golf Course in Venice.

City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, who was unaware of the traffic proposal until informed by a reporter, criticized the secrecy of the deliberations.

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“It makes me wonder if someone is trying to sell off the Westside,” she said.

Julie Butcher, spokeswoman for Local 347 of the Service Employees International Union, which represents the 500 traffic enforcement officers employed by the city, also criticized the privatization proposal. She suggested that non-ticket-writing functions currently performed by city workers, such as directing traffic, would be neglected by a private contractor.

City officials say no traffic officers would be laid off if the Westside plan takes effect. The 140 officers who work on the Westside would be assigned elsewhere.

That seems to be of little comfort to traffic enforcement officers, who fear being phased out of their $11-an-hour jobs. Some expressed opposition to the proposal by circulating an unsigned flyer in Westwood Village, a district notorious for pricey meters and shortage of parking.

The flyer proclaims that a private company’s main objective will be “ticket writing only” and that relaxed enforcement for events such as parties, funerals, school activities and religious ceremonies will be a thing of the past.

Yates, of the city transportation department, took strong issue with the flyer, saying the switch to a private concern should go virtually unnoticed by the public.

“We don’t see changing the policies or procedures under which the contractor would operate,” he said. “We’d still allow for community events.”

The impetus for the pilot program, officials say, came after assessing the early success of West Hollywood, which saved about $250,000 this year by contracting its parking enforcement out to a private company instead of hiring the Sheriff’s Department as it has in the past.

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West Hollywood Parking Manager Toby Fox acknowledged that some motorists, long accustomed to parking illegally, are in for a rude awakening. But she had high praise for the contractor, JL Associates.

“Regulations are more consistently and more evenly enforced,” she said.

Decidedly less enthusiastic was Michael Radcliff, president of West Hollywood Community Alliance, a local business group.

The Sheriff’s Department enforcement, he said, “was just as effective” and was “a little more compassionate toward customers and not as instantaneous.”

“They weren’t just concerned with giving tickets,” he added.