Ypsilanti City Council Meeting

PRESS RELEASE

Ypsilanti City Council Increases Fines and Fees

The Ypsilanti City Council unanimously adopted a resolution Tuesday night to increase city fines and fees for services. However, for now, parking fines will remain unchanged.

The council annually reviews the city’s fees and fines, comparing them with prices in nearby cities such as Ann Arbor. This year, most fees were increased by an inflationary rate of 2 percent while other rates either remained the same or were increased beyond 2 percent.

Among the proposed changes are a parking meter rate increase from 30 cents per hour to 75 cents per hour and a 10-hour parking rate hike from 15 cents per hour to 50 cents per hour in downtown Ypsilanti. Fines for violations such as parking over the legal time limit or having an expired meter would jump from $10 to $25, and citations for parking without a permit would jump from $20 to $50.

The council decided to postpone increasing the fines after local residents complained that the rate hikes would hurt downtown businesses and send more customers away to shop in nearby Depot Town, where there are no parking meters.

“The issue came up because there’s metered parking in downtown Ypsilanti, and in Depot Town, there aren’t any meters,” council member Barry LaRue said. “This creates a disadvantage for the downtown merchants. Increasing fines for overtime violations from $10 to $25 would amplify that disparity between downtown and Depot Town.”

The council voted to exclude the parking violations for further review and adopted the remaining portions of the resolution.

LaRue said the council will likely wait until May, when City Manager Edward Koryzno will release his 2005-06 budget, which will include funding to replace meter heads to carry out the parking rate increases as well as purchase additional parking meters.

For information on the city fee increases in Resolution No. 2005-36, call Ypsilanti City Hall at 734-483-1100.

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