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NEWSNET5.com CLEVELAND, OH If you don't pay your parking tickets in the city of
Cleveland, your car will be towed. It is part of a quiet crackdown NewsChannel5
uncovered in this exclusive investigation.
The reason for the crackdown is simple. Millions and millions of dollars are
owed to the city of Cleveland in unpaid parking tickets.
If your meter expires or you park in the wrong place, prepare for a parking
ticket. Most of us pay right away. But lots of others don't.
As a matter of fact, NewsChannel5 uncovered $17.5 million in unpaid parking
tickets in Cleveland, a city that could use that kind of cash.
So, who isn't paying? NewsChannel5 went to City Hall to get the list of
violators who owe the most in unpaid parking tickets.
According to the records, Mary Lou Culkar owes the city of Cleveland $3,410 for
double parking, parking in front of a fire hydrant and expired meters. There are
dozens of tickets -- all unpaid.
Chief Investigator Duane Pohlman asked, "Who's responsible for all these
tickets?"
Culkar answered, "Not moi."
That's because Culkar said she no longer drives.
"I don't have a car. I couldn't have done it," Culkar said.
But NewsChannel5 checked the records. The car in question appears to have been
registered as recently as November 2007.
Pohlman said, "I'm going to check your car history, you mind if I look at that?"
Culkar said, "Until I get a lawyer, I'm not talking to you anymore."
Lots of others who owe big money didn't talk at all, including Eric Banks with
$3,565 in tickets and fines.
Pohlman repeatedly tried to talk to him. Banks even scheduled an interview but
sent his brother to the door to tell NewsChannel5 that Banks backed out.
Andrea Halfacre owes $2,875 in unpaid tickets. She agreed to sit down with
NewsChannel5.
Pohlman asked, "Did you have any idea?"
"No, not until you came to my door," Halfacre said.
The week prior to the interview, Halfacre was not happy to see the NewsChannel5
camera.
Halfacre said, "It was my fiancé who got the parking tickets."
And that's the point she wanted to make clear.
"An ex-fiancé was driving it," Halfacre said. "He got all the tickets and
disposed of all the evidence without my knowledge."
But Halfacre has come to learn that the tickets follow the car, not the driver.
And the car ticketed so many times belonged to her.
Halfacre and many of the top-ticket violators have had their driver's licenses
suspended.
But there's a new high-tech tool in Cleveland's ticket crackdown: a squad car
with special cameras. When its computer recognizes a plate of a parking ticket
scofflaw the car is towed on the spot.
In less than a year, this high-tech tool nailed 140 cars belonging to ticket
scofflaws forcing the owners to cough up $126,000.
Cleveland police say the crackdown makes sense in a cash-strapped city.
"There's hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars in unpaid parking fines out
there. We're going to go after them," Lt. Thomas Stacho said.
Still, the Cleveland crackdown comes too late to recoup another $20 million in
older parking tickets.
In most of those cases, too much time has passed and the statute of limitations
has run out.
Cleveland police say that won't happen again.
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