Parked in the red zone

Bogus citations, bad attitudes — complaints that city parking enforcement officers have lost touch with the “Pasadena Way” are piling up faster than late fees on unpaid tickets.

On Monday, City Council members will consider whether to overhaul its parking enforcement program by cutting ties with Inter-Con Security Systems, an Old-Pasadena-based private security firm that has made millions of dollars writing parking tickets in the city’s name over the past decade.

Ending the use of private-sector employees to carry out the never-ending, revenue-expanding hunt for automotive scofflaws is not the other option on the table, however.

Instead, city officials are considering a new three-year, $2.2 million parking enforcement contract with Serco Inc, a British contractor with an American subsidiary based in Virginia.

Although both firms thrive on government contracts, Serco bills itself as a socially and ecologically responsible services-delivery company, and currently uses hybrid gas-electric vehicles as part of its parking enforcement contract in West Hollywood.  

Inter-Con, the Weekly has learned, recently settled a number of class-action lawsuits against it by past and present employees, including some of those working in Pasadena.

The company paid out $4 million in February to some 15,000 employees who claimed they were denied pay for attending mandatory job training and daily security briefings. In two other cases that affected only its California employees, the company paid an additional $2.5 million for claims that it consistently violated state meal and rest break requirements, said San Francisco attorney Jahan Sagafi, who represented the employees in federal court.

The city currently receives more than $5.3 million in revenue each year from parking citations — but potentially at a cost to its own reputation, wrote Councilwoman Margaret McAustin in an email to interim City Manager Bernard Melekian that was obtained by the Pasadena Weekly.

“I would like to have more information about how those enforcers are trained in ‘The Pasadena Way’ and know more about what our policies are because I receive a lot of complaints about our parking enforcers, including everything from parking tickets being given when there is no violation to surliness and writing a ticket while someone is trying to put money in the meter,” she wrote, asking that a routine consent item about parking enforcement contracts be held over from a June 23 meeting for full discussion. “Everyone who represents the city should be well aware of how we treat people here.”

Melekian said he ended up holding the item for his own reasons, namely to find out more information.

“We’ve used Inter-Con for a long time. It’s a local company, and there are very strong plusses with them. We’ve also had a number of complaints about their quality of service. I want to try to resolve some issues for myself,” he said.

Councilman Steve Madison, who represents the part of Old Pasadena where Inter-Con is based, also advocated extending the discussion, but for other reasons.

“A number of their employees who work on this contract live in Pasadena [and would lose their jobs],” said Madison, who was unfamiliar with any complaints about Inter-Con and was also concerned that the Serco contract would be more expensive for the city.

Inter-Con management, including a vice president of operations and a supervisor of its contract with Pasadena, declined to comment for this story.

Meanwhile, a man who more than a month ago complained in this newspaper about receiving what he calls “a nefarious ticket” — his car was parked only eight minutes in a two-hour zone in front of Inter-Con’s South DeLacey Avenue offices when he received a $37 fine for allegedly overstaying the limit — is still waiting for a chance to prove his case.

Although he can produce a bank receipt as evidence that he wasn’t even in town long enough to break the rules, South Pasadena actor Jay Brothers’ initial written complaint was denied. He will have to appear before a special hearing officer next month — and in the meantime, pay the fine and hope for a refund.

Brothers, who says a half-dozen other vehicles in the area may have also received dubious citations, is now calling the entire parking enforcement process unfair from start to finish.

“Instead of being innocent until proven guilty, I’m guilty unless I can prove I’m innocent. I’m sure most people [with contestable tickets], rather than go through the hassle, just pay,” he said.  
Since Brothers’ story appeared in this newspaper, the Weekly was contacted by the Rev. Willetta Helene, a longtime Pasadena marriage and family therapist who received what she describes as a similarly dubious ticket on a nearby portion of Del Mar Boulevard.

Helene, who has two receipts showing she was out of the area while allegedly overstaying her welcome, was formerly a minister at the First Congregational Church in Pasadena and interim Senior Pastor at Altadena Community Church (both affiliated with the United Church of Christ). Like Brothers’ fine, Helene’s ticket was upheld during initial written review, and she is expected to get an administrative hearing this week.

“This is a justice issue. They’re just arbitrarily giving people tickets,” said Helene of current Pasadena parking enforcement practices. “I’m fighting this for people who don’t have the time or money to be able to.”

Of 192,485 parking tickets issued last year, 9,963 (about 5 percent) were contested, but only one in four contested tickets were dismissed as invalid.

Although city employees have little to do with those who write the tickets, processing fines and complaints involves several city departments, explained city Parking Manager Bill Bortfeld, who works under the city’s Department of Transportation.

Although the city sets out terms for the contract and will contact management if problems arrive, Inter-Con — founded in 1973 by former LA Police Commissioner and retired LAPD Detective Enrique Hernandez — is responsible for all training of its parking enforcement employees.

If someone chooses to contest a ticket, the Municipal Services Division’s Citation Processing Section handles a written review before waiving the fee or turning it over to the city’s hearing officer, who is a retired police traffic officer.

The recommendation to cut ties with Inter-Con in favor of Serco was reached by a committee of city employees and a West Hollywood Department of Transportation representative who evaluated each company’s proposal. Although Inter-Con could do the job slightly cheaper and received preferential treatment as a locally based business, the team scored Serco significantly higher for quality of its overall program, management interviews and references.

If a contract is signed with Serco, the city would pay $725,570 for the first year of service, which includes 37,000 hours of enforcement as well as related labor and supplies. Inter-Con’s latest contract was for slightly less than $600,000.

Parking tickets are expected to increase the city’s general fund by as much as $5.5 million over the next fiscal year, but McAustin feels that council members should also be focused on making sure fairness and decency — cornerstones of the loosely defined “Pasadena Way” — are part of the deal. 

“For many people, interaction with parking enforcement may be their first [and only] interaction with the city of Pasadena,” she wrote. “It is up to us to set the standard; we are the ones giving a valuable contract.” 

Reporter André Coleman contributed to this story.