Riverhead Town may reduce parking ticket fines to $40
Riverhead Town may reduce parking tickets from $100 to $40 with the idea that doing so will discourage violators from challenging the town for a reduced cost.
The town had previously floated the idea to reduce the tickets to $50, but settled on $40.
“We decided on $40 and the thought process behind it is that people who receive a $40 ticket are more apt to pay the ticket without ‘A’ fighting it or ‘B’ just throwing it in the garbage and walking away,” Councilman Tim Hubbard said Thursday at a Town Board work session.
The thought is that the town would actually collect more money in the long run and would not have put manpower into tracking people down to pay the tickets, he said. The $100 tickets often had people showing up at Justice Court and getting their fines “reduced drastically.”
The proposal has a “kicker,” Supervisor Sean Walter said. Fines double after 30 days if someone fails to pay the ticket and an additional $40 is added after 60 days, according to the proposal. After 90 days, another $30 is added to the fine.
The Town Board will vote on Tuesday to schedule a public hearing on the proposed change.
