Town of Islip calls parking enforcement push a success

Islip officials are touting the success of an effort to more strictly enforce parking laws.  The town has collected $355,000 in previously unpaid parking tickets, according to a news release.

The town’s parking violations bureau says it has closed more than 50 percent of open cases; last August the town estimated it had about 8,000 unpaid parking tickets.

Last summer, Councilman Steve Flotteron announced a parking amnesty program to encourage people to pay their overdue parking tickets at a reduced rate, which raked in about $225,000 in fines as of October.

The town also instituted a booting program for vehicles that have received four or more parking violations and whose operators for at least 30 days have failed to respond, appear at a scheduled hearing, or pay a fine.

Booting scofflaws has netted about $22,000 in overdue parking fines, the news release said.

In June, the town’s public safety division launched a pilot program that allows public safety officers to scan a vehicle’s registration information while issuing parking violations on town-owned property. The town said in the news release that his system has helped officers identify 450 parking infractions.

“Implementing the more stringent enforcement methods has been a tremendous success for the town,” Flotteron said in a statement. “It has helped to close a large number of opened cases, which in turn, has helped to generate revenue in delinquent fines.”

Last August, the town board voted to contract with Fundamental Business Services, a Hempstead-based company that works with municipalities across Long Island to collect on unpaid parking tickets. At that time Flotteron said the company’s fee would be 30 percent of the money the town collects from the tickets.