City Turns To Collector For Unpaid Tickets Unable To Effectively Hound Parking Violators Robs City Of $1.18 Million

Ed La Fountain doesn’t want to pay for his brother’s sins, but the city of Spokane is trying to make him.

The Coeur d’Alene resident traded his 1976 gold GMC truck to his brother Terry three years ago. Neither title nor registration has been changed.

Since then, the truck has racked up at least 133 delinquent parking tickets and $2,605 in fines - a city record.

It’s peanuts, though, compared to $1.18 million owed Spokane from 53,003 delinquent parking tickets. City computer records show that many tickets issued from January 1992 through January 1995 are now delinquent.

The city is turning those tickets over to a collection agency, and Ed La Fountain’s been asked to pay. He blames his brother, and he doesn’t plan on paying.

His brother, who parks the truck outside his job on Spokane’s Second Avenue, is not too concerned.

“What am I supposed to do?” asked Terry La Fountain, adding that he doesn’t have the money to pay the tickets. “I tried. I tried. There’s no other place to park.”

Five scofflaws, including La Fountain, have racked up more than 100 tickets each. Together, they owe the city $11,570 in tickets and fines.

The city can’t strong-arm parking ticket scofflaws because booting or towing cars is against the law.

It certainly could use the money, though, to pay for things like more police and firefighters. Money from all the outstanding tickets, for instance, would be enough to hire 28 new police officers.

Nearly two of every three tickets issued from 1992 to 1994 have been paid. Some people never will pay.

“They don’t care, and there’s not much we can do to get them to pay,” said Tom Dowling, Municipal Court administrator. “That’s why we hired a collection agency.”

There are several distinct types of parking scofflaws.

Institutional scofflaws, such as the U.S. government, run up tickets and don’t even know it. The cars are used by different drivers, many of whom skip out on the tickets.

Serial scofflaws run up tickets on more than one car.

Sneaky scofflaws register their cars to post office boxes, to other people, to other addresses and in other states. Some leave no forwarding address.

About a fifth of the delinquent parking tickets were issued to out-ofstate cars.

This year, the city expects to collect $948,000 from parking tickets - $65,061 more than it collected in 1994.

City officials hope to collect even more by turning over delinquent tickets to a collection agency. That began last fall.

So far the city’s gotten $36,000 because of notices that delinquent tickets would be forwarded to an agency.

Tom Kerr isn’t happy about the collection agency involvement. The insurance salesman for Kincaid and Associates on Post Street has paid 40 of the 65 tickets issued to him since Jan. 20, 1994. The city’s turned over 22 others to the collection agency.

“It stinks,” said Kerr, adding his company is considering moving out of downtown because of parking hassles. “There are a lot of people out there who are really (angry) who have tickets and they don’t have the time to go to court and argue.”

He said he didn’t intend to pay the 40 percent surcharge added by the collection agency. That would mean $616 for the tickets and the charge.

“I’m thinking about selling the car, and the new person wouldn’t be responsible for them,” Kerr said. “Then I’d declare bankruptcy.”

The U.S. government is responsible for 315 outstanding tickets, but has made significant progress. In November 1992 it had 2,000 delinquent tickets.

Nine of the top 10 ticketed federal cars are registered to the Army recruiting office, but it’s not clear which individuals are responsible.

“If we don’t know who the driver is, who do we go to?” said Verna Rossevelt, spokeswoman for Army recruiting’s Seattle office.”We’re trying to find an alternate means of dealing with the problem of making payment.”

Jack Montgomery is simply trying to find the means of making payment. He admits he’s a serial scofflaw. His 1972 Dodge sits in his Spokane driveway. It hasn’t run in a couple of years.

But the car led an active life, gathering 97 tickets in just eight months in 1992. Sometimes, the car racked up three tickets a day.

Montgomery also drove a 1982 Mercury that racked up 42 unpaid tickets in 1994 before he sold the car.

Montgomery said he plans to pay the tickets, but isn’t intimidated by a collection agency.

“They can stand in line with all the other ones - no joke,” he said. “I’m very familiar with the collection agency system.”

Other scofflaws have brought innocent people into their problems.

Amanda Totten’s car is registered to both Totten and Barbara Christofferson at Christofferson’s address in Coeur d’Alene.

Christofferson sighed when asked about Totten, a former friend who’s received at least 108 Spokane tickets on the red 1989 Hyundai.

Christofferson co-signed for the loan for Totten’s car and said she’s been haunted by credit agencies because of Totten’s missed car payments. She said this almost blew the financing on her house.

Totten said the parking tickets were a bad habit.

“Those are pretty old ones,” she said. “I’m starting to pay now that they’re sending them to a collection agency.”

Ed La Fountain says he’s buried in problems, and his brother’s 133 unpaid tickets are not a priority.

But Washington law says the registered vehicle owner is responsible for parking tickets, meaning Ed is legally responsible for Terry’s tickets.

Terry knew his brother’s name was being turned over to a collection agency, but “I’m already there myself,” he said, standing in the garage on Spokane’s Second Avenue where he works.

Outside, the two-hour meter on his truck had expired. So far, there wasn’t a ticket on the dashboard. And if there was, it might not stay there long.

“He comes out every day and rips it in half,” a woman next door said.

“I guess because he (has out-ofstate license plates), he doesn’t have to pay them. He gets free parking.”

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