Politics & Government

Collingswood, Get Your Cars off the Streets

Enforcement of an overnight parking ordinance in the borough is about to stiffen, thanks to the hiring of new officers.

If you were one of the 1,500 borough residents who woke up to a flyer on his or her car window from Collingswood police, consider it a heads-up that the new parking officers hired by the fully staffed department are about to earn their keep.

"Borough Ordinance 293-21 prohibits parking on any roadway between 2 and 6 a.m.," the document reads. 

"In the coming weeks, the Collingswood Police will begin actively enforcing the above Ordinance."

Residents are asked to call in license plates of overnight guests to the department at 856-784-9161.

The return to normal enforcement of the overnight parking ordinance is part of the "balancing act between the realities of modern life with cars and the reality of modern life with crime," said Collingswood Mayor James Maley in a post on his Facebook page.

Maley told Patch Thursday that the issue is related as much to a need to refine local laws as it is to parking enforcement. 

"We’re going to start doing permits that have an end date," he said. "They’ll be good for two years. That will get them into a system of verifying them."

Maley rebutted criticisms that the uptick in enforcement is motivated by a money grab; not only are parking permits free to borough residents, he said, but police could have chosen to enforce the law that's already on the books without the benefit of a warning.

"They gave out 1,500 flyers," Maley said. "Do you know how much money we could have made if we just issued tickets?

"That’s not a money maker," he said. "We don’t need to raise money that way."

The mayor also mentioned that the new officers will also be dedicated to curbing traffic violations in the borough—a subject of some discussion at the latest Collingswood town forum.

"The two full-time Class II’s...they’re our traffic enforcement," Maley said. 

Enforcement of traffic and parking violations had been slowed by a number of retirements within the Collingswood police department, the mayor said.

He added that mass hiring for the Camden County Metro Division soaked up a majority of available applicants for those positions in Collingswood.

"The last eight months, we’ve been going through a time where we lost a lot of cops," Maley said. "Now we’re back to where we can focus on this."


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