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WPCNR THE PARKING NEWS. By John F. Bailey. August 3, 2007: The Public Affairs Chief for the First Marine Corps District told WPCNR Thursday that $75,000 of the $95,000 in money the Marines owe the City of White Plains are a result of the fines and late fees, and that more than half of all 1,891 tickets written on Marine vehicles were given in one location: the Maple-Chester Municipal Garage — on Marine Vehicles where Parking Permits were withheld — resulting in majority of Parking Citations.
Marine Corps Recruiting Headquarters, Post Road, White Plains with distinctive gray Marine Official Recruiter Car with trademark globe and anchor Marine insignia on the rear door. The vehicles park right around the corner in the Chester-Maple Municipal Garage below, a location, the Marine spokespersons says where over 50% of the 1,891 Marine tickets were issued, according to Marine analysis of the tickets. The city said this could be true but did not have a breakdown of citation by location available.
Chester & Maple Municipal Garage where the Marines lease space for their rolling stock and have parked for years.
The Maple-Chester garage was where the Marines had parking permits to park official and personal cars. Marine cars were ticketed in the Chester Maple Avenue location because Parking Permits were withheld when arranged Army Corps of Engineer payments for the spaces which the spokesman said arrived on time, were not processed by the city in a timely manner for reasons unknown, the spokesman said today.
Gunnery Sergeant Matthew Butler reports 75% of the amount the City of White Plains says the Marines owe the city could be attributed to late fees, over 50% of those late fees came from the tickets issued at the Chester-Maple garage for parking without a permit.
Butler said the lack of permits resulted from the city not recording Army Corps of Engineers checks for payment, payment methods not being recorded or cleared in a timely maner on what he described as leased parking space by the Marines in the garage.
Butler said Marine analysis of the tickets showed that Marine vehicles not having parking permits in time the first part of the month appeared to be routinely ticketed by the city, for months on the first of the month, racking up the parking tickets back to 2001.
Butler said today the Marines who showed up to receive their permits would be told the permits had not been paid for. Butler said the payments arrived on time from the Army Corps of Engineers but the city for some reason did not record them or recognize them as being in.
“As I understand it it has been at least since 2001 (this has been going on). That it (the backlog)had been intermittently taken care of, that would be better answered by the Army Corpos of Enginers,” Sergeant Butler said. “This particular agreement on the parking permits was pay as you go, which is a little bit different than (the usual Army Corps of Engineers policy). We were paying for the month we were going to be parking for. Not last month’s. This is something special the Army Corps of Engineers worked out with the city.”
Permits Withheld Producing Tickets for the Marine Vehicles
Butler told WPCNR, “I was assured (by the Army Corps of Engineers) that the payments were always there on time, so from that, I don’t know if the checks didn’t get cashed on the first day of the month, and because they didn’t get cashed the first day of the month, the new parking vouchers or passes were not issued until the check cleared. I’m assured (by the Army Corps of Engineers) the payment was there on the first of the month. That would be a good question for the city were the checks ever not there on the first of the month.”
WPCNR asked if Marines came up to the Chester-Maple office asking for their new permits and they were withheld.
Butler said, “Because this is something that went on for a while it’s quite possible that Marines got into this the Army Corps of Engineers are going to take care of this, they know there’s an agreement there to pay for the parking, we shouldn’t be getting these tickets.”
Asked for this agreement, Sergeant Butler said he would talk to the Army Corps of Engineers to get a contact to produce the agreement.
The Marines he said always paid for the permit spaces in the City’s Chester-Maple garage. This payment clearing problem, the Sergeant said resulted in the city systematically, like clockwork, ticketing Marine vehicles on the first of every month for months – on vehicles Marines regularly parked in the garage.
Larson Comments
John Larson, Deputy Commissioner of Parking, disputed the claim that all the Chester-Maple no permit tickets contributed 50% of the tickets, telling WPCNR, “This could be true, might be partially true” but he had no way of knowing that unless the Department of Parking went through all tickets.
He said, “The Marines have 1,891 tickets not all are related to this issue of parking without a permit – I don’t know if that’s true or not. $23,290 is the base fines on all of their tickets, and $71,325 is the penalties. The total comes up to $94, 615. You tell me he said of the $94,000, $50,000 is related to the (parking without a) permit issue. That’s what he’s claiming. If that’s true that still leaves $44,000 not related to the permit issue. I think he’s trying to confuse the issue. The amount outstanding, fines and late fees is $94,000 and change. If he said $50,000 is related to their failure to buy (parking permits on time), that means at least $44,000 is related to some other issues.”
“ The math doesn’t work out that way though,” Larson said, but said there were no figures on the late fees per individual tickets and ticket category and location breakdowns available.
The Army Corps of Engineers leases the Chester/Maple space and allows the Marines to use it as a courtesy, Butler said.
No lease?
Larson disputed this saying the Marines and the Army Corps of Engineers do not have a lease. Sergeant Butler told WPCNR, the Marines have an agreement with the city to purchase the permit spaces, when told of Larson’s remark.
Larson said that the Army Corps of Engineers paid for parking permits for official Marine Corps vehicles in the Chester and Maple Garage, and said the Marines also leased parking permits for their personal cars in the garage. According to Larson, the Marines did not have an ongoing lease and were supposed to pay for the permits in advance prior to the first of the month “like everybody else.” Larson said the city does not accept “direct deposit” and said the Permits for the Marine personal vehicles were paid for by a Marine Recruiting Center credit card.
Larson did not have a breakdown available on the 1,891 tickets. He said that “it is possibly true” most of the tickets the Marines received could have been for not having parking permits being displayed when they parked at Maple Avenue Garage meters. In such cases, Larson said, the Parking Enforcement Officers would simply write a ticket for overtime meter parking.
Why Marines Do Not Pay
Friday afternoon Gunnery Sergeant Butler issued this official statement on why the tickets have not been paid:
“…we are confident that White Plains would concur that nearly 75 percent of the 90k can be attributed to late penalties, not actual parking citations. A majority of the tickets were issued for parking in a garage in which the Army Corps of Engineers leased spaces for our recruiters. This agreement predates this issue. The Marine Corps has a long tradition of upholding our nation’s laws and standards and we continually strive to be upstanding members of the community.
We would not have ignored this matter in any way and have conducted a thorough review in an attempt to identify and rectify the causes of the problem and to resolve this issue with the City of White Plains.
Federal law prohibits using tax dollars to pay for individual fines in this instance.
Meter violations why Marines Not Paying — No Way to Trace the Individual.
WPCNR asked Sergeant Butler about the Parking Tickets owed by Marine vehicles on meter overtime violations in other locations and why they had not been paid:
Butler explained that previously Marine Recruiters in the White Plains Recruiting Center, owing individual city parking tickets had not been made aware by the command of the recruiting office that they are responsible for paying their individual tickets.
Sergeant Butler said individual Marine officers are supposed to pay for tickets they get:
“When an individual gets a parking ticket for a parking meter that expires, it is up to the individual Marine to pay for that ticket. A portion of these parking fines are from the leasing agreement with the city of White Plains where there was a problem with the payment process (for the lease). It was an administrative thing. Payment was always made for the parking permits in the Chester Avenue Garage by the Army Corps of Engineers for a leased parking facility. But because of administrative errors that credit was not given by the city,” (apparently resulting in the ticket).
It is not clear whether the city made it a policy to ticket Marine cars that were regular permit parkers because they did not have permits or Marines got the permits late due to the Army Corps of Engineers mailing the checks late.
WPCNR asked Sergeant Butler if this was partly the City of White Plains fault, and he said, “I think that’s the stance we’re taking. They’re trying to sort those things out. They’ve changed the lease agreement from monthly to quarterly, so it’s a step in the right direction.”
Butler indicated in a telephone interview Thursday evening that the quarterly arrangement for paying the lease just negotiated would help solve the check clearing problem.
No Way to Distinguish: Larson
Larson, said when a Marine vehicle is found without a permit, “We don’t know if they are going to pay (for a permit). They have to pay just like everybody else.”
The city, the sergeant said would ticket the Marine vehicles up to the time when the checks cleared, at which time the Marines picked up their permits, the concentrations of tickets being at the first of the month. Butler said he was not sure if the vehicles were ticketed for not having permits or for the city not receiving payment from the Army Corps of Engineers for the spaces, or for just parking at meters in the garage without the permit that allowed them to do so.
Larson said Friday the Marines would be ticketed for parking overtime at a meter, not for no permit, pointing out that the Parking Enforcement Officer had no way of knowing if the Marine Vehicle had a permit or not, was supposed to get one, or not.
Butler said that of the $93,805 the Marines are alleged to owe (accumulated since 2001 according to press reports) “more than 50%, and 50% of that is not parking tickets they’re penalties incurred for late payment or non-payment. Does that make sense? The actual fines are much less. 55% of that ($51,600 of the $93,805) is ballooned from penalties. Half of that have mostly been accumulated from late fees on existing tickets.”
Larson noted that there were still plenty of other violations not related to the Chester-Maple no parking permit issue.
The Situation Friday
The offer of the Commissioner of Parking reported in other media to accept a $50,000 payment from the Marines to erase the debt was not explained by the Commissioner in news reports, as being payment for the $50,000 in tickets and late fees for parking without a permit in the leased spaces – which Butler says makes up the vast majority of the amount the Marines owe.
On the individual tickets given Marine vehicles for parking meter overtime violations, Butler said in the past, “The command was not made aware to rectify the situation. Since this has been brought to our attention, there hasn’t been a problem that we’re aware of any situation (of individual Marines not paying tickets). We’re working closely with the City of White Plains. Ms. Claudia Ferrara is readying a report for us we asked for again today, to make sure we’re not violating any parking regulations.”
WPCNR asked Mr. Larson where the issue stands today:
“The law department has been speaking to the General Services Administration and their attorneys and we’re hopeful we can get it resolved one way or another. I’m hopeful we can get it resolved one way or another. I know their position is that the driver of the vehicle is responsible for any tickets they receive. That’s the GSA’s position on all – not just the Marines – government vehicles that are driven around the country. If you’re a government employee and you’re driving a car and you get a ticket, you have to pay.
The problem is they legally say they can’t pay these tickets and that the drivers are responsible, and they can’t figure who these drivers were three or four years ago whenever the tickets occurred. From their side that’s part of the problem.”
The Moroni Settlement
WPCNR asked if Parking Commissioner Moroni’s offer of a settlement with the Marines of $50,000 reported previously, was still on the table:
Larson said, “I don’t think he made a direct offer of a specific amount of money. I don’t know if he (Mr. Moroni) said that or not. I’ m not aware of that exact amount of money. We’re looking forward to some sort of settlement as well.”
Sergeant Butler said there had been no unpaid parking tickets by Marine vehicles since April, to his knowledge.
Sergeant Butler said the city did not notify the Marines of the Chester-Maple payment problem: “Since we’ve been made aware of it (last December), we’ve done everything we can to resolve the situation. The perfect example of that, instead of a monthly parking permit the Army Corps of Engineers is purchasing three months of parking, making sure that that was done on the first with the vouchers being presented so there is no issues of parking violations and citations.”
Asked if the city reached out and informed the Marines the past saying we’re not getting the parking permit payments on time, we’re going to ticket you: Sergeant Butler said he did not know.
Gunnery Sergeant Butler released this Official Statement to WPCNR Friday:
The Marine Corps has expressed the need to have open dialogue with the White Plains parking authority in an attempt to rectify the matter and ensure measures were in place so as to not allow it to happen again. I am confident that we are making progress in this endeavor.
As recently as last yesterday, we were in communication with the Deputy Corporation Counsel for the City of White Plains. It would be inappropriate to discuss the details of this meeting at this time. However, we are confident that White Plains would concur that nearly 75 percent of the 90k can be attributed to late penalties, not actual parking citations. A majority of the tickets were issued for parking in a garage in which the Army Corps of Engineers leased spaces for our recruiters. This agreement predates this issue. The Marine Corps has a long tradition of upholding our nation’s laws and standards and we continually strive to be upstanding members of the community.
We would not have ignored this matter in any way and have conducted a thorough review in an attempt to identify and rectify the causes of the problem and to resolve this issue with the City of White Plains.
Federal law prohibits using tax dollars to pay for individual fines in this instance.
Currently, there no Marine Corps vehicles operating within the City of White Plains that have delinquent parking violations. Since the Marine Corps has been made aware of this matter, the command has implemented several preventive measures to minimize potential for future violations of the parking regulations.
* We provided a list of all our government vehicles to Ms. Claudine Ferrara, the parking violations supervisor for White Plains. We update the list semiannually in April and October or as assigned vehicles change. We have also given GSA permission to give her our contact information should she contact them about a vehicle that belongs to this command.
* Ms. Ferrara will contact this command directly about any delinquent tickets for vehicles that belong to us. (A ticket is considered delinquent when it has not been paid within 30 days.)
* The Army Corps of Engineers has gone from purchasing monthly parking passes to quarterly (3-month) parking passes for our vehicles in White Plains in order to prevent gaps in coverage of parking permits for the government vehicles.
We are confident the citizens of White Plains know that the Marine Corps does not put itself above the law in any way. Instead our nation charges us to uphold and defend their freedoms. The city of White Plains also knows this; we firmly believe that through these discussions this issue will be rectified. Since the roll up of the $90K which ended in April we have not been informed of any new tickets. Ms. Claudine Ferrara is checking the records now but hasn’t yet found any violations that belong to the current Marine Corps Government vehicles. If any are identified there are measures in place to handle those violations.
