When the judgment is filed, the village then has a couple of ways to get its money. They can serve papers to the violator’s employee to extract 10% of the person’s paycheck or they can attach their bank account, which in turn will freeze their account until the amount of the judgment is paid.
“If there is no way that the judgment can actually be reduced to dollars and cents,” Village Attorney Barry Warren said. “It’s there, it serves to warn anybody who might be wanting to apply for a loan or mortgage application, the judgment would certainly need to be paid before those various applications would be approved.”
“I honestly believe that most of the time people have a tendency to be a little dismissive of a parking ticket,” Village Trustee Adrienne Kessel said. “They need to understand that they are responsible and I think this will alert a lot of people.”
Other visitors parking in Port Jefferson; however, said they take the village tickets just as seriously as one issued anywhere else. “You have to take them seriously,” said Eric Kreusch, a visitor that has been issued tickets in Port Jefferson before. “Any ticket you’re going to get in trouble with if you don’t pay them, so you have to take it seriously.”
Parking tickets in Port Jefferson Village are written for violations of village code, including parking illegally and failing to pay the parking meters.
The parking meters were introduced into the village under the administration of the former Mayor Jeanne Garant. When Mayor Mike Lee took over, the meters were adopted everywhere. “He came in and paved every lot and put meters in every spot,” said current Mayor Garant, Jeanne’s daughter. “A lot of us weren’t really crazy about it, but the parking needs to be managed during the height of the season.”
Port Jefferson Village is a major tourist and commuter attraction, and needed a way to effectively manage parking.
The meters bring in roughly $300,000 a year and violations and fines bring in another $300,000 per year. The best way to manage parking in Port Jefferson is a hotly debated issue, but something Garant is dedicated to solving. “The pay for metered parking is a solution,” she said, “But I don’t know if it is the ultimate solution.”
“Anybody who gets a summons, they’re not very happy,” Constable Sergeant Charles Gennaro said. “But it’s explained by all the signs, you cannot go into any of the parking lots without seeing a sign and there are meters everywhere.” According to data collected by the Village Court there were 7,986 tickets written for parking violations in 2009. From January to March 2010 there were 559 violations written.
