Welcome to the Wednesday, May 20th, 2026, Finance Utilities and Rules Committee meeting.

First item on the agenda we have is ordinance D 2820-26, an ordinance of the common council of the City of Carmel, Indiana, amending chapter 3, Article 2, Section 3-58, and Chapter 8, Article 5, Section 3, Section 8-45 of the Carmel City Code.

We have Officer Hasty here from the Carmel Police Department to present how they came up with these fee structures and open for discussion for the public.

This all started with a parking study that was conducted in the central core related to complaints and so forth and parking.

The Carmel PD then investigated ways to increase enforcement.

And this is part of solving some solution creating some solutions and hopefully ensuring some compliance when it comes to parking in our central core and throughout the city.

Yeah, if you just give a brief overview of how we got here and then why uh chief and yourself are recommending these.

Okay.

Change.

I'm Zach HC, Sergeant Carmel PD.

We've been listening to our residents and listening to the counselors, and and we saw a need to explore options to increase our patrols of timed parking spaces within the city.

So historically we've we've just not had the tools to do that.

And so we started looking at at looking at options that we were going to be able to help turn over those spots that were in front of some of our businesses to encourage more visitation from uh from this from the community to them.

Um and then also to target some of our not necessarily target, but to help increase patrols around the high school and some of our neighborhoods that have the uh residential permit citation.

So we started looking at options that were kind of an all-encompassing type thing, something that could offer a way that we could effectively do the patrolling, and then also uh that would cover our permitting needs for our merchant parking and residential parking.

So we we started this process about 18 months ago.

We interviewed many different companies, many different styles.

Once we got the parking study back, um it was recommended in the parking study as well that an LPR based, which is license plate reader, an LPR-based system was recommended.

So that was already the route that we started looking at to begin with.

Um, so we we kind of dove all in on that.

Uh the equipment, it it essentially mounts onto a pre-existing vehicle that we have.

There's between three and four cameras that mount at at about eye level around the vehicle.

One one might be a little lower, but um essentially what it does is as the parking enforcement or CSO would drive around the city, it's it's collecting data, it's collecting license plate data.

What that will do is we're working with Passport now to kind of build out what the infrastructure looks like in the system.

Essentially, they took our local ordinances that have all of our locations for the timed parking locations already in it.

They're going to map out the entire city.

So whenever you scan a license plate, it uses GPS latitude and longitude technology to know exactly where that vehicle is and know what time spot it is in, and then it will start a timer based on that.

So if it's in a three-hour spot, it will start a three-hour timer based on the exact latitude and longitude GPS coordinates of where that vehicle is parked.

At that point, and it does this instantaneously as as the uh as the parking enforcement officers driving around.

So as they continue to drive around and do their patrols, if they come across a vehicle that's that's past the time, an alert will pop up on the computer that they can take enforcement action, whatever that may be a warning ticket, education, whatever, whatever that looks like.

But they'll be alerted from the system that hey, this car is not moved.

It's been here for four hours and a three-hour spot.

So then at that point, the parking enforcement officer can take enforcement action, whether, like I said, whether it's a ticket warning, education, um, but then they can they can then print off the ticket from the computer.

Um, the ticket we were working with Benjamin on the formatting and what kind of information is on there, but the tickets essentially going to give them a link to the passport payment portal.

Um, that's that's partly one of the things that we're still working through to get passport as the approved agent to be able to collect those funds.

But once that once that happens, payment will go to passport.

We have elected to get payment remitted back to us once a month from the collected fine revenue that comes from that, minus the fees that we pay passport to run their to use their uh their database to use their software to use their payment portal.

So we we would pay a fee for that, and then that would that would be taken out of whatever fines are collected for the month, and then we would get whatever's left over, or if we're in the in the red, then we would cut a check for the difference, whatever whatever that would be on a monthly basis.

We're also looking at getting three handheld devices that are LPR as well.

Um so it runs off of a um Android platform and it's got a camera on it and a printer.

So if it's a nice day, we're gonna encourage officers to walk around, be involved in the community, have conversations with folks.

Um but it does the same thing, but it's just a handheld unit.

So what they would do is they would go up to the vehicle, scan the license plate, they would mark on the application where like the valve sim or whatever would be, um, take a photo of the vehicle, it would start the timer, and then they could keep doing their patrols walking around.

The handheld devices and the mobile device that we're looking at will communicate with each other.

So if somebody scans a plate that another parking officer scanned earlier, they will communicate with each other, um, and then they'll they'll alert them if there's if there's a violation in the area.

Uh so I mean that's that's the 30,000 foot view of how this would work.

We're looking at hiring two part-time folks in the process of doing that now.

There uh is an application process that's open through tomorrow, um, and then we're gonna do some more interviews and try to identify a couple folks to to come on board part-time to help us with the parking enforcement.

So we have the we had the red line um ordinance in our packet, um, and then there was some uh we may uh Benjamin, we sort of give an overview of just the red line changes and how that uh how that impacts and then Sergeant Hasey will probably have a couple other questions, sir.

Yes, sir.

Okay, Benjamin Legal Corporation Council.

So if I may just add a little bit of uh framework to this, a parking ticket when issued now is under the jurisdiction of the ordinance violation bureau.

The ordinance violation bureau is a um statutory creature.

Um it's allowed for under city code, which means that it doesn't generate the ticket in court, it goes to kind of an administrative bureau.

Uh the council has adopted by ordinance to have uh ordinance violation bureau.

It has uh designated the city clerk to be the uh ordinance violation clerk, and it has set the fines um set forth in there.

So if a person gets a ticket, they can go ahead and just pay that fine, and once the fine is paid, it never it doesn't go beyond that.

If they don't pay the ticket or if they deny it, it then gets referred to the Office of Corporation Council, where we will then file in courts and it will generate a call's number, it will generate call fees, they will get an initial hearing in front of the judge to admit or deny, and then if they deny, if they admit, pay the fine with the call fees, um, and or if they deny them will go to trial.

So this is an administrative process that enables for efficiency.

Um, hopefully to remedy those unaware offenders that they they become aware, it's a low much lower fine.