Clifton Park plans to hear on the traffic law change

Clifton Park will preserve a public hearing on a proposed change to the city’s traffic regulation that might modernize its complete site visitors ticket charge system and lower a few fines.

The public hearing may be held on March 11 at 7:10 p.M. Inside the Town Hall.

In October, the Town Board unanimously approved a settlement with web-based total service Passport Labs that could allow motorists to pay ticket fines online rather than appearing in Town Court or mailing a cash order, which is the cutting-edge system.

Various city officials, which includes town Security Director Lou Pasquarelli, Town Attorney Tom McCarthy, and metropolis judges and court group of workers reviewed proposals from numerous software organizations associated with parking control and enforcement.

The agreement with Passport Labs, that’s founded in North Carolina, will value the city $6, two hundred. There will be demonstrations inside the future to expose how the Passport gadget works.

Neighboring municipalities have already made the transfer to an internet-based fee alternative. In the towns Halfmoon and Glenville, as well as the town of Saratoga Springs, those paying fines can use credit score playing cards to pay online.

“We’re looking ahead to enforcing this as we go ahead,” Clifton Park Town Supervisor Phil Barrett said when the settlement turned into signing.

The purpose of updating the town’s automobile and site visitors legal guidelines, McCarthy stated, was to make the technique of paying and processing fines less complicated for all parties worried. He referred to as the current machine outdated.

“Really what we’re looking to get is a higher stage of compliance, and decrease fines,” he stated on Thursday.

Currently, the prices for first-time parking violations in town will be as much as $one hundred fifty, depending at the infraction. Under the brand new regulation, that pinnacle amount will move all the way down to $one hundred. McCarthy said the issuance of $150 charges changed into extraordinarily uncommon, so dropping the top amount down would make feel.

“We by no means impose those sorts of prices on all people,” he stated. Second-time violations within 18 months will pass from a $250 capacity charge to $2 hundred, and a 3rd violation fee will cross from $500 at the maximum to $three hundred.

Another new a part of the regulation would be the formation of an administrative parking violations employer so as to deal with contested parking tickets. Most of that paintings might be performed via McCarthy, he stated, as well as his deputies in Town Hall.

The new software has now not been completed, however, town officers receive weekly updates from Passport on their progress, McCarthy said. In the interim, McCarthy and the Town Court are going to address a backlog of unpaid tickets stretching back to 2017. They will ship notices to the ones who have now not paid their fines.

“We’ll take a look at the Department of Motor Vehicles website for modern owner information and generate certified letters to people in an try to remedy that backlog. We’ll do that as they are still constructing [the software],” McCarthy said.

The software program can even allow town personnel to take an image of the violation so the ticket-payer can see their infraction when they visit to pay the price tag online.

McCarthy said the metropolis does not use parking tickets as a sales booster, and that, at best, the brand new generation might be sales neutral or provide a small increase through better compliance.

What’s extra important, he said, is ensuring that people are parking on the ideal facet of the street, in appropriate areas, and making ticket payment simpler for everybody.