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Santa Ana officials and residents are increasingly raising concerns that the city’s contracted parking enforcement officers are handing out too many tickets and lack basic customer service skills.
There’s also concerns about enforcement officers going too far and taking the responsibility of enforcing other traffic and vehicle laws – enforcement areas they weren’t hired for.
Councilman David Penaloza gave a clear message for the contracted workers when it comes to enforcement.
“Don’t be jerks about it,” he said at the March 4 meeting.
Earlier this month, city council members called on police and staff to rein in the contractor, LAZ Parking, after complaints they were handing out tickets for laws they weren’t hired to enforce like expired registration tags and missing front license plates.
City Councilman Phil Bacerra said it needs to be made clear in future contracts what LAZ enforcement responsibilities are and what they are not expected to do – raising concerns that the contractor was going beyond merely parking enforcement and ticketing for not having front license plates and other vehicular codes.
“They’re the kicker in football, right? They don’t run, they don’t pass, they don’t call an audible, they just kick. That’s all they’re there to do,” he said at the March 4 meeting.
“I don’t think any of us envisions parking enforcement all of a sudden, seeing a high speed chase, and there’s LAZ right behind you guys, that’s not their role.”
Rob Maroney, vice president of Government Services for LAZ parking, did not respond to emailed questions about enforcement efforts in Santa Ana or the concerns raised.
The company is known for aggressively lobbying for contracts which spilled into a public argument last year over who could run parking at John Wayne – a contract bid they eventually lost.
[Read: The Politics of Scoring a $60 Million Contract in Orange County]
Mounting Complaints
Police Commander Joe Marty said that after the department received complaints about LAZ enforcement officers ticketing for issues other than parking like expired registration tags, police officers stepped in.
“Our direction to them is not to go out and start shopping for citations. What we want them to focus on is the primary violation, and not to just mark everything up,” he said at the council meeting earlier this month.
“The first part of the complaint was patrons getting cited for no front license plate or expired tags, so we went ahead and took that away, which still stands today. They’re not issuing any of those violations.”
Marty added that they held a training with them in the fall to emphasize taking an educational approach to ticketing and having better customer service.
Other elected officials said they experienced the aggressive ticketing and lack of courtesy first hand.
At the meeting, Mayor Valerie Amezcua said she was ticketed for not having her front license plate and for not parking correctly in a stall despite a contracted parking enforcement officer watching her do so without saying anything.
Councilman Johnathan Hernandez said he received a ticket because the enforcement officer said they couldn’t see the date on his parking placard.
The complaints come as city officials are expected to contemplate renewing a nearly $1 million contract with LAZ Parking to enforce street sweeping parking, paid parking and permit parking violations.
It’s a contract that generated $2.1 million worth of citations in 2023-24 and roughly $1.4 million worth of citations between July 2024 and January 2025, according to a staff report.
In 2023-24, LAZ gave out over 72,000 tickets.
That’s roughly double what the police department gave out that same year for a cost that was hundreds of thousands of dollars less, according to the same report.
At the same time, Santa Ana officials are also starting to plan their spending priorities for the next year as they brace for a loss of $30 million in revenue in 2029 with the expected decrease of Measure X – a temporary sales tax increase approved in 2018.
[Read: Santa Ana Leaders Warn Looming Sales Tax Cliff Could Tear Up Public Services]
The parking enforcement contract in Santa Ana is expected to end in June.
Santa Ana’s concerns come at a time when city officials in OC are increasingly turning to third party companies like LAZ and SP Plus to enforce parking rules and street sweeper violations.
And these companies are bringing in new revenue for places like Stanton and Orange – a city where officials are still struggling to quell what was initially projected to be a $19 million budget deficit.
[Read: Some OC Cities Privatize Parking Enforcement For Higher Ticket Revenue]
At their Tuesday meeting, Santa Ana City Council members are slated to discuss setting parking rates for city-owned parking structures and parking meters.
Santa Ana: The Wild Wild West of Parking Enforcement
Councilwoman Jessie Lopez said officials have been hearing for months concerns of parking enforcement ticketing for missing front license plates and watching parking meters to issue tickets as soon as the time runs out.
“Enforce the parking code that exists here in the city,” she said at the March 4 meeting.
“But other than that, I don’t want to hear about LAZ giving out tickets to our families, who many of them, whether people like to hear this or not, or agree with me or not, are struggling financially under this economy, and a $100 ticket, two tickets at that, at one time, can really destabilize somebody’s budget.”
Councilwoman Thai Viet Phan said she supports LAZ’s parking enforcement efforts, but also called on staff to ensure their enforcement responsibilities were made clear.
“Ultimately, we all have a responsibility when we live in this world,” she said at the March 4 meeting.
“We’re talking about parking enforcement, because that’s a problem in our city. If someone is doing something that is negatively impacting the parking that is so scarce here, then we should enforce it, and that’s how we learn.”
Hernandez said lots of business owners and staff in the downtown area have been documenting their concerns with LAZ parking and it’s one of the most pressing issues brought up when he meets with local businesses and their customers.
He also raised concerns that enforcement officers don’t treat people with the same courtesy as local cops, particular one LAZ officer he said was aggressive, argues with business owners and blocks cars so he can ticket them.
“That type of practice is just really concerning. It’s anti-business. It’s not friendly to the patrons. So I am supportive of us opening up an additional (contract bidding process) at the end of the LAZ contract, just to ensure that we’re extending an invitation to other businesses,” Hernandez said, adding that it might be better for the cops to take over parking enforcement.
According to the staff report, bringing parking enforcement inhouse through the police department would cost roughly $1.5 million the first year.
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @ElattarHosam.
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