Residents in one North County city will soon be able to request refunds for parking fees and citations incurred over the last year.
“This will give residents an opportunity to communicate directly with the city on obtaining a refund on past parking fee charges while also complying with state law,” Paso Robles City Attorney Elizabeth Hull said during the Feb. 20 City Council meeting.
The City Council voted 3-2 to direct staff to introduce the refund program—with Councilmembers Fred Strong and Chris Bausch voting no—alongside a set of amendments to the city’s parking municipal code that reflect changes made in November 2023.
The Feb. 20 vote comes after the city suspended its parking program and reviewed a downtown parking ordinance passed in 2018. Hull was concerned that November’s City Council action may have conflicted with the rules set in place five years prior. While Hull didn’t find any explicit conflicts, she found that the City Council passed a resolution in 2019 to adjust the parking program to its modern-day boundaries.
“What should have happened is a resolution to make sure that it aligned with the 2018 ordinance and state law,” she said at the meeting. “I think when we do things by resolution it’s a little harder for the public to find, whereas if we do it by ordinance it’s by municipal code and a little bit more transparent.”
As a result, the City Council voted on the first reading of amendments to the original 2018 parking ordinance that include clarification on the 2019 and November 2023 resolutions. In addition, the downtown parking program will remain suspended at least until the next City Council Meeting on March 5, when the amendments will receive a second reading and can be officially adopted.
They establish the downtown parking zone’s boundaries, establish a base cost of $1 to $5 an hour subject to adjustment by the city manager, and select specific 30-minute free parking spots, and clarify signage, rollout options, and payment methods, subject to a study conducted by the city manager.
Hull told the council that neither the refund program nor the new amendments resulted from resident Gary Lehrer’s recent cease and desist letter. In the letter, Lehrer requested the city halt all parking program-related enforcement actions, alleging that the council’s November 2023 vote violated the Brown Act.
“The direction was in line with the 2018 ordinances, which itself complies with the state vehicle code,” Hull said at the meeting, noting the effort she made to ensure the November actions also aligned with Brown Act procedures.
However, she said it would be best to allow residents to seek refunds for charges they deemed unfair over the last year, as the changes made to the parking program weren’t clear.
Residents who feel they have been unfairly charged from Feb. 6, 2023, to Feb. 4, 2024, will have 120 days once the program launches to fill out a form requesting a refund from the city. Residents must also sign a waiver agreeing not to bring a claim or lawsuit against the city for the “improper fees” before Feb. 7 of this year.
Some residents urged the City Council to continue with free parking, as it eliminates any future confusion or discontent.
“I’ve been downtown four or five times since parking enforcement has been taken away, and everyone is happy with it,” one public commenter said at the meeting. “The amount of cognitive dissonance that will happen if you put this into place will be astounding.”
This article appears in Feb 22 – Mar 3, 2024.
