Park Ridge City Council set to forgive 1,300 tickets spanning 9 years

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Updated: March 3, 2012 8:08AM

The Park Ridge City Council is preparing to forgive nearly 1,300 tickets issued by police for parking and non-moving violations during the past nine years.

Aldermen on Jan. 23 expressed tentative support for a request from Finance Director Allison Stutts to “write off” 1,299 tickets because the majority are missing required information needed to collect the fine, like the name and address of a vehicle’s registered owner. Stutts said this information is not included in the database of Duncan Solutions, the company that handles citation payments for the city.

The 1,299 tickets account for $61,654 in fines. They include parking tickets and citations for a variety of non-moving violations, such as failure to wear a seat belt or driving a vehicle with only one headlight.

The Park Ridge City Council could formally act on a motion to forgive the fines, meaning the city will no longer seek payment, during a regular council meeting on Feb. 6.

Stutts said names, addresses and sometimes license-plate information will be deleted if Duncan representatives run a plate number through the Secretary of State’s Office and are unable to find a name to match. But Stutts questions whether the company is checking every Illinois license-plate type when they run the plate number, and if names and addresses the Police Department has already provided are being improperly deleted when Duncan cannot match them to the license plate.

Stutts said the city is hoping to resolve these issues.

Of the 1,299 tickets recommended to be written off, 462 were paid but their late fees were not, Stutts said.

As of Jan. 9 the city was aware of a total of 7,101 unpaid vehicle tickets with $561,536 in fines owed to the city, according to a memo from Stutts that was shared with the City Council. Of that number 2,100 tickets, totaling $214,000, are now eligible to go to a collection agency, Stutts said.

Five drivers also risk having their vehicles booted due to a sizeable number of unpaid tickets for parking and non-moving violations. According to Stutts these five drivers racked up $18,650 in unpaid tickets and fines between 2007 and 2011. One driver has 59 outstanding tickets that were issued between 2009 and 2011, Stutts said.

The city resumed its booting initiative Jan. 6, but no vehicles have yet been booted, Stutts said.