Police May Share Parking-Ticket Duty : Thousand Oaks: City Council will consider allowing volunteers in new policing program to write the citations.

The time-consuming task of passing out parking tickets--currently handled by traffic cadets and sheriff’s deputies--may soon also fall to 23 volunteers if the Thousand Oaks City Council approves.

At today’s meeting, the council will consider a proposal to let graduates of the city’s new Volunteers in Policing program write parking tickets. Mayor Jaime Zukowski said the move would give sworn officers extra time to handle more important matters.

“We’d like them to focus on, follow up on serious crimes,” she said. “Keeping an eye on traffic is important, and these trained volunteers can help us do that.”

The volunteers, who graduated last week from a 10-week training program, would not write all, or even most of the tickets.

Instead, as the volunteers cruise Thousand Oaks neighborhoods looking for suspicious activity, they would ticket cars they spot parked illegally. Under the proposal, they may also respond to residents’ complaints about illegal parking.

Lt. Mike Brown, an administrative lieutenant with the department, said that the volunteers’ job is to complement cadets and deputies, not replace them.

“We’ll probably be a lot more efficient in our parking enforcement with their help,” he said.

Ticketing would not be the only job the volunteers will take on when they begin patrols June 5. They will keep an eye on homes of families who are on vacation and do clerical work at the station.

They also have been taught what to do when they encounter auto accidents--such as directing traffic, calling for backup and performing CPR if necessary.

They were also taught that, as civilians, they should avoid hazardous situations or conflicts. While parking enforcement rarely gets rough, the volunteers have been trained to call deputies in case someone objects too strenuously to a ticket.

“Just back down, back off, even if they drive away,” he said. “We’ll get them later.”

Such problems have been rare in Huntington Beach, which allows the approximately 40 members of its Retired Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) to ticket cars they find illegally parked in spaces for the handicapped.

Huntington Beach Volunteer Glen Davison said that, to her knowledge, no one had threatened a volunteer writing a ticket. “Once in awhile they’ll talk ugly,” she said. “A lot of it has to do with how you go into it. If you’re obnoxious, people are going to act the same way.”

Huntington Beach Police Lt. Jim Cutshaw said the volunteers understand the importance of their job.

“A friend of theirs or a relative may need one of these spaces, and they take it personally,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to be parking in a handicapped zone with an RSVP nearby.”

Cutshaw is pleased with the volunteer program. “They basically do all this work for us at no cost, and they’re thrilled to do it,” he said.