Whittier

A move by Police Chief James Bale to more than double parking fines in Whittier has been unanimously rejected by the City Council.

Council members voted against Bale’s proposal because they feared it would discourage consumers from shopping in the city, particularly in Uptown Village, a re-emerging retail center that has been the focus in recent years of an intense redevelopment effort. Bale said he sought the increases to bring Whittier’s parking fines--which have not changed in five years--in line with those of other Los Angeles County cities.

Under Bale’s plan, fines for parking illegally in an “emergency no-parking zone” or one- and two-hour parking zones would have increased from $8 to $19. The fine for parking in a 20-minute loading zone would have jumped from $8 to $21.

But council members argued that stiffer fines would do little to improve the crowded parking situation in the Uptown shopping district and could backfire, discouraging consumers from buying goods in Whittier.

“All of these fines are going to be on the people who aren’t creating the problems,” Councilman Lee Strong said. “If someone parks in Uptown for two hours and 10 minutes and gets a $19 fine, Uptown will have a big problem.”

Council members agreed to consider the issue again after Bale completes a study of parking fines in cities with shopping districts similar to Uptown Village.