Parking offenders to receive notices

They park too close to intersections, block driveways, and sometimes they drive up curbs and park on grass parking strips.

These errant parkers in Browne’s Addition soon will find what looks like a parking ticket on their windshields.

Beginning Monday, volunteers from the Browne’s Addition Neighborhood Council, in cooperation with the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture and other neighborhood volunteers, will be slapping offenders with “courtesy notices.”

These courtesy notices are a way of educating people in Browne’s Addition about the safety issues that illegal parking creates. The notices were also used in 2001.

“What we found is that you go out and mark some cars and get an amazing response with improved parking behavior,” said Dean Lynch, a neighborhood volunteer. “The problem took care of itself.

“There were several of us who continued periodically. I would have a notice in my car or as I walked somewhere and if we saw someone illegally parked, I’d place them on their car.”

The effort lasted two or three months that summer, but no notices have been given out for several years, Lynch said.

“We take a very nonconfrontational approach. We put the notices on the windshield when no one is around,” Lynch said.

“There have been a few people that were upset, but once we tell them that this is just a reminder and courtesy notice, people have been OK with it,” he said.

The courtesy notices inform illegal parkers that the Spokane Department of Parking Enforcement is planning special patrols in Browne’s Addition.

The notices look like tickets and inform drivers of their offense – parking facing the wrong way; parking over or on curbs; parking within 20 feet of a crosswalk; parking within 30 feet of a corner; parking within five feet of a driveway; parking on a sidewalk; parking within 30 feet of a stop/yield sign; parking in a “no parking” zone; or parking within 15 feet of a fire hydrant.

Those parking violations warrant a real ticket and a $30 fine.