Jamestown Mayor Sam Teresi
JAMESTOWN – Mayor Sam Teresi is reminding motorists the city’s Parking Ticket Amnesty Program ends on April 30, 2016. Afterward anyone who has an overdue fine will once again also have to pay any additional charges, including a late fee.
The month-long program was approved by the Jamestown City Council last month and has been in effect since April 1. It allows vehicle owners with outstanding tickets to pay the face value of those tickets, waiving any penalties or fees that may have accrued.
The program was initiated in part to help bring in revenue that is owed to the city. Teresi said so far the results have been positive.
“It’s on track of what we projected and hoped for,” Teresi said following the city council’s Monday night voting session. “They’re collecting about a thousand dollars a day and that’s about where we had been targeting from the beginning – somewhere in the $25,000 to $40,000 range – and it looks like that’s where we are probably going to end up.”
Once the program ends, all fines and fees will be reapplied to the base cost of a vehicle owner’s outstanding tickets and the city will resume its collection efforts.
Teresi says that having outstanding parking tickets may lead to negative impacts on credit ratings, having vehicles booted and towed, along with other consequences.
“We will continue to be working with the Department of Motor Vehicles, under the state’s scofflaw, to make sure that vehicles that have outstanding obligations against them will not be able to register those plates,” Teresi said. We’ll also be working through a private collection firm that will be pursuing civil action on behalf of the city and also turning this in to credit agencies, which can affect folks’ credit ratings. And we’re also looking to publish the names of those with outstanding obligations on the city’s website and through the local media.”
Any motorist who owes outstanding parking ticket fines would have received a detailed letter prior to the April 1 start of the Parking Amnesty Program. To pay tickets, please visit or mail payments to the Treasurer’s Office, Municipal Building, 200 East Third Street, Jamestown, NY. Or, visit the city website at www.JamestownNY.net to pay online.
For more information, call the Treasurer’s Office at 483-7512 or email treasurer @ cityofjamestownny . com.
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