Law firm tapped to hear parking ticket disputes for City Hall
(subhed) Law firm tapped to hear parking ticket disputes
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(Editor’s note: This story is part of an ongoing series that tracks the city’s expenditures appearing on upcoming Santa Monica City Council consent agendas. Consent agenda items have been part of public discussion in the past.)
By Kevin Herrera
Daily Press Staff Writer
CITY HALL — The next time you try and fight a parking citation, you’ll have to take it up with an attorney from the law offices of Sherman and LeVine.
The firm will be responsible for holding impartial reviews of contested parking tickets for City Hall, that is if the City Council approves a two-year contract tonight.
Santa Monica — along with Beverly Hills, Culver City and West Hollywood — picked Sherman and LeVine as the law firm to run administrative hearings, something which is required by law after state legislators in 1993 passed a law decriminalizing parking citations and transferred the responsibility for citation processing and adjudication from the courts to municipalities, according to a city staff report.
The cities of Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Culver City and West Hollywood jointly issue requests for proposals for the selection of a firm to handle hearings in order to obtain better pricing and coordinate parking activities. However, each city separately contracts with the selected hearing examiners.
The total cost of the contract is not known at this time since Sherman and LeVine will be paid on a per case basis. On average, the number of cases heard each year is 1,644. The first year, the firm will be paid $13 per case, with an estimated annual cost of $21,632. The second year, the price per case jumps to $14, according to the staff report.
Hearing examiners cannot be employees of the city and they are paid a flat fee per hearing. Compensation cannot be linked to decisions. Approximately 5 percent of all parking citations are contested and enter adjudication.
If a driver is not happy with the decision of the firm, they can file an appeal to be heard by the court within 30 days.
Expert advice
In addition to the contract with Sherman and LeVine, the council is also expected to approve modifications to contracts with three consulting firms working with city staff on the update to the Land Use and Circulation Element (LUCE), a plan that will dictate development in the city for the next 20 years or more.
The firms — Nelson/Nygaard Consulting Associations, Moore Lacofano Goltsman, Inc., and Whitney & Whitney, Inc. — are being asked by city staff to provide transportation planning services, run community workshops and prepare an economic feasibility study as part of the LUCE process.
The total increase in pay is roughly more than $770,000.
Billed out
The council is being asked to approve another contract modification with Black and Veatch, which is overseeing the seismic retrofit and air-conditioning replacement projects at City Hall.
The modifications will cost roughly $591,000, according to a staff report.
The project has two major components, one of which includes turning the old jail into a data center that will house the Information Services Division, which is in charge of running City Hall’s Web site and storing data.
Converting the jail into a data center and offices requires the addition of an exterior elevator, restrooms and a new main entry door. Also, increased power demands require the construction of an exterior electrical room.
The current total estimated construction cost for the retrofit is approximately $10.5 million. Funds have been approved by the Federal Emergency Management Agency for the additional design work by Black and Veatch, with the exception of funds for the construction of the electrical room, which is ineligible under federal guidelines.
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Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 11, 2007. Read the original PDF.