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A strongly worded audit report released last week charges that Berkeley’s parking enforcement has suffered a decline in production and morale, and officials have failed to safeguard parking meter money. 

On Tuesday, the audit, overseen by City Auditor Ann-Marie Hogan, will go before the City Council, which doesn’t escape the audit’s criticism. 

Also on Tuesday’s agenda, the council will hear an appeal of permits for the construction of a five-story condominium project at 2700 San Pablo Ave. and consider approving up to $2 million in contracts for outside environmental and planning studies on new developments. 

With Berkeley facing a $7.5 million structural budget deficit next year, city officials are eager to boost revenues from parking enforcement operations which have lagged behind city expectations. 

The audit found that from fiscal year 2003 to fiscal year 2004 parking enforcers, per person, issued 6 percent fewer tickets. Due to higher ticket fines and fewer parking enforcers on sick leave, revenues nevertheless increased from $6.7 million in 2003 to $8.3 million last year—still below the city’s $9 million target. 

Even though they haven’t met city goals, parking enforcers still took in nearly triple the revenue required to pay for the enforcement, the audit found. To boost parking fine revenue, Berkeley police are proposing hiring three new parking enforcers and one new supervisor in the department that currently consists of 23 parking enforcers and six supervisors. 

The audit found that parking enforcers face numerous obstacles to meeting city collection goals. On an average day, about 400 of Berkeley’s approximately 2,900 parking meters are out of service and the color painted on the specially marked curbs is not always clear, keeping parking enforcers from ticketing for infractions like parking in a red or blue zone. 

Inconsistent enforcement goals from City Council have also hurt productivity, the audit found. According to police, parking enforcers had been asked not to cite violators for several types of transgressions and had been ordered to ease off on the enforcement of residential preferential parking on Saturdays when the Cal football team was in action.  

But the council in 2002 required parking enforcers to issue multiple parking tickets to cars that overstayed their time at broken meters. 

“It appears that council has not yet explicitly, publicly and clearly stated to parking enforcement operations the parking enforcement goals and the best way to achieve the city’s overall parking enforcement goals,” Hogan wrote. 

She also concluded that the mixed messages had contributed to low employee morale. From employee interviews, Hogan wrote that 84 percent of parking enforcers disagreed with the statement, “The city respects a job well done.” 

Although the audit found no evidence of misappropriating parking revenues, Hogan warned that cash handling procedures were inadequate. Among her concerns were that all traffic maintenance workers had access to the city safe with parking meter keys, which was observed to be unlocked for an entire day and that no one had responsibility for safeguarding canisters with meter coins. 

“Given the current system of accounting for coins, if there were missing canisters or less money in the canister than there should be, there would be no way to track down who was responsible,” Hogan wrote. 

The audit also faulted the police department, which manages parking enforcers, for failing to keep accurate enforcement statistics. From 2001 through 2003, police records for parking enforcement and finance department records revenue differed by as much as $2.1 million. Even when police revised their numbers after learning that they were not properly using an accounting program a discrepancy remained. 

Hogan called for the police to follow her recommendation from a prior audit and hire a public safety business manager to “provide for adequate budgetary and performance measure reporting.” 

Hybrids May Get to Park For Free 

In another twist to the city’s parking enforcement policies, councilmembers Gordon Wozniak and Linda Maio are proposing that the city study the costs and benefits of allowing hybrid and other fuel efficient vehicles to park for free at metered spaces. 

Appeal of Condo Project 

The council will hear an appeal over a five-story project with 30 condos, four live/work units and ground floor commercial space at San Pablo Avenue and Derby Street. After local developer Patrick Kennedy failed to develop the plot in the face of neighborhood opposition, he sold the site along with several already approved permits to San Francisco developer Charmaine Curtis. 

Last December the Zoning Adjustment Board granted Curtis a permit for the project. A group of neighbors has appealed. 

The appellants argue that the Zoning Adjustment Board should have required Curtis to start the permit process anew, failed to make proper findings to permit a fifth floor, should have required a more thorough environmental review and failed to ensure that the project followed the spirit of Berkeley’s law requiring that developers set aside units for affordable housing. 

Planning Contracts 

The Planning Department is asking that the council approve four contracts with outside planning firms to provide services for developers seeking to expedite Berkeley’s planning process. The three-year contracts would not exceed $500,000 per contract and would be paid by the project applicant. 

In his report to the council, Planning Director Dan Marks wrote that “having a consultant function as a ‘dedicated planner’ for a specific project allows it to move faster” because city staff have other duties. He cited 2020 Kittredge St. and the “Blood House” at 2526 Durant Ave. as examples of consultants successfully being used to work on projects. 

Marks is recommending the city contract with Crawford, Multari & Clark, Pacific Municipal Consultants, Amy Skews-Cox and Chandler Lee. 

Former Planning Commissioner Zelda Bronstein said that in the past consultants have ignored Berkeley zoning rules, causing projects to actually be delayed. Chandler Lee, she said as an example, was hired to work on the West Berkeley Bowl, which has been withdrawn from the Planning Commission’s agenda pending revisions and is now two months behind plan. 

“I don’t think this will make anything go faster,” Bronstein said. ô