Colton officials give update on street sweeping enforcement

Editor’s note: Colton City Manager Bill Smith’s comments have been edited for accuracy

Residents who don’t move their vehicles during street sweeping days will be cited by parking enforcement, Colton officials clarified on Tuesday.

Utility Director David Kolk explained to the City Council on August 15 that the city is issuing $35 parking tickets to residents that don’t move their vehicles from street curbs on street sweeping hours.

Kolk said efforts began when some residents complained about their neighborhoods being skipped over by sweeper trucks due to cars being parked on the streets.

Councilman David Toro suggested discussing the item because there were some concerns regarding parking availability.

“I know we have streets in this area where there is no where else to park,” he said. “It is an issue.”

A proposal was made to rearrange the schedule to better accommodate residents with parking concerns. Kolk said doing so will only disrupt current operations that took months to plan and coordinate with sweeping contractor R.F. Dickson.

”Not sure how long it would take us to coordinate and make sure [sweeper] stays on schedule,” Kolk said. “It may end up looking like a bus schedule.”

City Manager Bill Smith reminded the Council that the current street sweeping schedule has only been in place for a month and will take residents some time to adapt to operations

“It’s reasonable to expect that folks are going to have a little bit of discomfort with it initially,” Smith said. “I would suspect that after a relatively short period of time people will saddle into the schedule and get used to it.”

Mayor Richard Delarosa asked Police Chief Mark Owens for an update on street sweeping enforcement efforts. Owens explained a parking officer spends several hours with the street sweeper issuing citations to vehicles parked unlawfully. He admits current street sweeping enforcement is only a “stop gap measure” and in need of an upgrade.

“We’re currently doing research on new measures,” he said. “License Plate Readers could be mounted to sweeper, which would generate a citation right then and there. It would pay for itself.”

To view a map of Colton’s street sweeping operations, click here. To view a schedule of the city’s street sweeping operations, click here.