Hermosa Beach City Treasurer David Cohn has called for an overhaul of the parking meter system, saying that many meters do not function properly, $2 million a year in revenue is not properly audited, and there is “an unusually large backlog of disputed parking tickets.”
City officials have said they were working out bugs with a new parking meter system, which includes central pay stations at some of the city’s downtown lots and the municipal parking garage on Hermosa Avenue. They have acknowledged that wireless communication from meters to City Hall has been problematic.
But interim City Manager John Jalili and Finance Director Viki Copeland disputed Cohn’s claims about inadequate auditing, and about the numbers of malfunctioning parking meters. They said that Hermosa operates its parking meter system in the same manner as other cities.
In a letter to the City Council, city manager and other top officials, Cohn complained of “what I call procedural and financial governance deficiencies in our parking system, stemming from field auditing of the meters, reporting of revenues…and subsequent issues with an unusually large backlog of disputed parking tickets.”
“At the current time we do not have a reliable system of auditing the actual money each parking meter takes in. The most recent quarterly report showed 158 meters not functioning properly. I have discovered meters on Pier Avenue which do not show up on the field audit whatsoever,” he wrote.
In a memo to Cohn, Jalili and Copeland responded that “the report you are referring to does not indicate whether a meter is broken or not. Drawing that conclusion from this report is incorrect.”
Cohn’s letter continued:
“The process of collecting this [meter revenue] data is through a hand held scanner in which the collected data is downloaded. It is my understanding that we were not able to use the scanner at all for the first six months of 2011.”
“I have concluded that with no field auditing for [fiscal] quarters one and two, and the huge variances on the so-called field audit for quarters three and four, we took in millions of dollars on the ‘honor system.’ It is my understanding that Duncan [meter company], which was our support resource for parking meters, does not any longer support the equipment,” Cohn wrote.
“The same person who is collecting the cash from the meters is doing the field scan auditing. This is a totally unacceptable practice for any type of organization, which requires financial governance in handling of public funds,” Cohn wrote.
Jalili and Copeland responded that the cities of Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, Beverly Hills and West Hollywood, “all of whom have sizeable meter operations,” use “the same practices” as Hermosa, including coins collected from meters by “unescorted employees.”
Cohn wrote that it takes Bank of America three to four days to credit the city with the deposited quarters, and charges “a handsome monthly fee,” and he has been “meeting with a number of banking officials so that we can avoid these types of fees.”
Cohn appeared before the City Council on Tuesday to press his point.
Mayor Jeff Duclos offered to “sit down and discuss this item” with Cohn and Jalili.
“I did not want to come here to create a street fight,” Cohn said. “These are things that need to be looked at.”
Councilman Michael DiVirgilio called for Cohn’s letter to be placed on the official agenda for the council’s next regular meeting, so members of the public can examine Cohn’s parking meter complaints, which were not discussed in detail during his appearance on Tuesday.
Cohn said he did not present his letter for Tuesday’s publicly posted meeting agenda because he “wanted to see what officials would stand up and ask for further discussion” of the letter.
Public process
Before Cohn spoke, DiVirgilio had called for the treasurer to discuss, at the next council meeting, his decision to solicit banks that could compete with Bank of America for the city’s business.
DiVirgilio’s attempt to place the matter on the next meeting’s agenda was supported only by fellow Councilman Kit Bobko, and died for lack of a third vote.
“Every other vendor hired by the city goes through a public vetting process. What possible justification could there be for us [the council] to hide the decision making process involved in hiring our bank – the bank holding millions of dollars of the people’s money,” DiVirgilio said, in response to questions after the meeting.
Last month, Cohn had told the council that he was receiving proposals from other banks, and DiVirgilio said “it was evident to me that this had to be a public process.” ER
