Mountain Of Unpaid Parking Tickets Major Motivator Behind Proposed Changes At City Hall
The retirement of City Clerk/Solicitor Myron Gulka-Teichko may have been accepted with regret by Council but the retirement has also offered the opportunity to some restructuring at City Hall.
Restructuring which will see the return of a dedicated City Clerk’s position as well as some major moves on the bylaw enforcement and legal front.
The City Clerk/Solicitor position will be eliminated and replaced with two positions – a City Clerk and a Solicitor/Director of Legislative Services and Enforcement Services.
These two new positions – City Clerk and City Solicitor/Director of Legislative Services – will allow better focus on the issues that each position entails unlike the former combined position, City Manager Jim Puffalt told Council by audio link from Nipawin.
“This (Gulks-Teichko’s retirement) also gives an opportunity to look to the future of the department and work towards some more enforcement which I think is an important part of what we have to do,” Puffalt said.
The move fits in well with the City’s philosophy of putting personnel focused on similar functions into the same department, Puffalt said.
The changes will see a new City Solicitor/Director of Legislative and Enforcement Service position that will be the direct supervisor over top of the new City Clerk’s position. However the City Clerk will be in charge of supervision of the clerks, with the City’s legal services or solicitors in a different area under the direct supervision of the City Solicitor/Director of Legislative and Enforcement Service.
“This structure would allow the Planning & Development Services Department to focus on growing the community. Legislative & Enforcement Services to focus on City documents/bylaws/Council duties, enforcement, litigation, and compliance with Provincial standards,” the report to Council read.
He said dividing the position and then restructuring of the two departments will allow Bylaw Enforcement to move into the new Legislative Services Department where under the leadership of the City Solicitor/Director of Legislative Services they will be more effective.
“What we want to do is to have a little bit more or quite a bit more of focus and attention on bylaw enforcement. And right now it is looking at parking tickets.”
At the present time the City of Moose Jaw is owed over $940,000 for unpaid parking tickets with some dating back a decade. It is a mountain of cash the City wants to collect a large chunk of.
BACKGROUNDER MJPS AND UNPAID PARKING FINES
If the City thinks they will receive the full support and assistance from the Moose Jaw Police Service (MJPS) in collecting the ten year mountain of unpaid parking tickets they may need to think again.
According to a source within the MJPS, who asked not to be identified as they had not been authorized to speak publicly on the Force’s behalf, said there is little if any resolve within the Administration and the rank and file members of the Force to become involved as what would de facto be the City’s bill collector or collection agency.
The source said the MJPS has “other better things to do than run around the city and collect parking tickets for City Hall. It is a waste of time.”
The source also said other than having the commissionaires who issue parking tickets and a sergeant assigned to process the tickets that collection should “not be a police priority.”
Asked if it was a waste of time - both financially and resource-wise - to collect a parking ticket from a decade ago the source said the only option the City had was to “boot cars of those not paying tickets because the police are not going to be spending their time chasing old unpaid parking fines.”
The officer also pointed out that although close to a million dollars worth of fines are outstanding that public relations-wise collecting that large of a number of unpaid fines would reflect badly upon the MJPS, the City and the Downtown
Moving the two bylaw officers from the Planning Department to the new Legislative Services Department will allow focusing “the City Council legislative agenda to Bylaw Enforcement, litigation, legislative compliance, grievances and law suits into one department,” Puffalt said.
Puffalt said that the City had learnt from Gulka-Teichko’s efforts to both being City Clerk and City Solicitor did not work well and did not allow for focusing on issues on either side of the equation.
The move will not result in any budgetary impact in 2021 as there is sufficient funds considering Gulka-Teichko’s retirement and the length of time it will take to replace the position, he said.
In 2022 the move will cost an additional $75,000 to pay for the new City Clerk position.
“And in 2022 (it will cost) $75,000 and again an opportunity to start collecting some of those outstanding parking tickets and move to some sort of cost recovery with those tickets,” Puffalt said.
COUNCIL’S RESPONSE
Councillor Dawn Luhning wanted to stress the proposed changes are to approved during the upcoming 2022 Operating Budget discussions.
“I wanted to express that the recommendation being provided to Council this evening is in my opinion is a preliminary motion,” Councillor Luhning said, adding it would be better outlined as part of the upcoming budgetary discussions.
“We have seen some different ideas around what this might look like or what some people would like to see it look like and I am really looking forward to have more discussions about this in Budget,” she said.
Councillor Crystal Froese said she agreed with the initiative.
“Separating the Clerk’s and Legal Department makes sense to me,” she said.
Councillor Froese felt that separating the Clerk’s office and Legal Department would make it easier for the two sides in the present office to better focus on their duties while at the same time often working closely together.
“We are often getting complaints about Bylaws not being enforced and having bylaw officers out there. Well the truth is we simply don’t have the resources for it.”
Councillor Heather Eby said she supported the departmental structural changes because they were “incremental changes you know and not bite off more than you can chew so I am pleased that we are at this point.
She asked a question about the mountain of unpaid parking fines.
“We do know in the City there is a back,,, a huge issue with outstanding parking tickets. Is it a million dollars or some crazy number like that now we talk about, Bylaw (Enforcement) is going to be stronger and we can enforce that. Is this going to have any impact of collections of that?,” she asked, adding “Or is that going to still be hmmmm didn’t work, we are going to have to do better going forward?”
Pufflat said the move would allow focusing on the collection of unpaid parking tickets.
Out Of Time
Over the past decade motorists have racked up $940,000 in unpaid parking fines - it is something the City wants to collect (MJ Independent file photo)
“I think that with some attention being paid to it and the resources we would be able to move on this quite a bit quicker than had initially been discussed…it certainly is a large amount of money we are leaving on the table, but without the resources there is no way to deal with it.”
The Moose Jaw Police Service (MJPS) did not want to get involved in collecting outstanding parking fines (See Backgrounder for more details).
“Unfortunately if seems to be somewhat of an outlier between the MJPS and the City as where it should fit. This maybe allows us to put it in the spot where it makes the most sense.”
Councillor Eby went on to ask if the Departments are reconstituted would it go beyond a philosophical but also a physical move as well.
Puffalt said that it would but he could not reveal any details of what physical moves may occur until after people affected were informed first.
Councillor Dog Blanc indicated Council had discussed in-camera the mountain of unpaid parking tickets but he was critical of the oldest outstanding fines ever being collected.
“Now unfortunately I don’t think we are going to be able to collect all of them because a lot of them are so old I don’t believe there is a court system around that will say “a parking ticket from ten years ago, people had better pay,”” Councillor Blanc said.
He went on to feel that he was “hoping that gives Bylaw Enforcement a little more teeth and what not and we can move forward.”
Councillor Jamey Logan said he supported the changes because they would help on both sides of the equation.
“I agree with this new position we are creating. Simply to free up the business development side of the City,” Councillor Logan said, adding “Hopefully the Bylaw Enforcement folks can focus on some of the Bylaws that need to be chased around the city.”
Council unanimously agreed to create two positions - City Clerk and City Solicitor/Director of Legislative Services – as well as accepted the retirement notice of City Clerk/Solicitor Myron Gulka-Teichko with regret.