And I think I can answer any questions, but essentially it's very effective for people that are having trouble with illegally parked cars. PPA in Philadelphia, you're not the only people that have problems on public streets. Those public people come to private property. We as the people, we are learned behaviors, creatures of habit. So people know if you get three tickets on the street, then you get a boot so people tend to hold three tickets. I'm sure there's studies on this. I'm sure it's true. And then after they get their fourth ticket, then they pay. This is better than a tow. I have so many people that say I'm just so happy my car is here, overwhelmingly so because the average price is 150 and the average tow is 250 and that doesn't include your inconvenience of coming to a tow yard. I think I covered about everything that I needed to cover. Just essentially my name is Mikina Harrison and I definitely operate with integrity and I can answer to any questions that you have on any situation.
Thank you so very much for your testimony. Member Lozada, do you have any questions?
So what I would suggest, and I listened to what you said, the first thing that we should have done was had this conversation before they were deployed. That would have been a better way so that we could talk about issues and amounts and how much could be charged and what is predatory and what is not. So my suggestion here is that we convene a meeting, we can do that with the Deputy Commissioner, with the Parking Authority, with members of Council to talk about these uses of this type of technology in the City of Philadelphia so that we can get ahead of it. My question directly now is if I'm on a parking lot and let's say my time was for an hour, an hour and 15 minutes, at what point after that hour and 15 minutes can you put that barnacle on my car?
So that's not been outlined with any outline other than me, myself, in my personal business what I do. I give them a seven-minute grace period, and I've given that seven-minute grace period just on the fact of living in the corporate world and if you're late, you're not late until either you clock in after six minutes or something like that. That's basically what I based it on. When you have the Park Mobile app, you have the option of actually clicking for it to give you a 15-minute warning. So if you're at dinner, it beeps and you know you got minutes to get to your car 15 and then we give you an additional seven minutes to get to your vehicle.
But that's out of your good graces but not regulated by the industry?
All right. I have no further questions. Is there anyone, Mr. Glass, who would like to ask questions?
Can I just follow up with one other thing that I did forget to say?
I believe that Tonya is on the line from The Dane. They're in your District. A parking -- not parking, a residential apartment building such as theirs, they charge their residents for parking in their lease, that they charge for parking, so I would propose that when we all meet that you would not be able to use the barnacle on any apartment building that did not charge for parking. That way I think that we would get rid of a lot of gray areas because people pay for parking. The management there they provide us with a list which acts like the Park Mobile app, and it says they're good to park there for the month. They're good to park through February and it's in their lease that they pay for parking so that there is no gray area. She provides me with a list of their tags and everything is concrete. So if you have a parking lot in, I don't know, let's just say 3rd and Lehigh but they don't charge their residents for parking, you would not be able to use the barnacle in that instance. They would need to be towed.
Thank you for your input. Thank you for your testimony.
Do you have correspondence from the City Solicitor's Office?
I do, Mr. Chairman. The following email is from a senior attorney, the Legislation and Legal Counseling Unit of the Philadelphia Law Department. Placing a window/windshield barnacle on a vehicle would qualify as handling in any manner under Chapter 14 9-605(11)(b) of The Philadelphia Code and would therefore be prohibited with prior ticketing by law enforcement. Separate legislation wouldn't be needed because it does suffice as it's being used to immobilize a vehicle.
So, Member Lozada, that was for your question on what about what can we do immediately. And so, that email should be forwarded to the Deputy Commissioner and members of this Committee.
Hi. I'm sorry. I think I understood your email from the Legal Department. Are they referring to Bill No. 15 160682?
Okay. Great. All right. I just wanted to make sure because I wasn't clear because I'm not a legal person. But under that there is an exception that in a licensed parking lot a vehicle may be moved to another location in the parking lot prior to being towed or ticketed. So if you would be able to send that back to them, that would be great because we are able to relocate, handle and touch a vehicle as long as we're not towing it and it remains on that property.
So I'm not clear about the distinction. But what I heard them say was that under that classification, what was that to be handled? What was the exact -- so why don't we get clarification on that.
And before we pass it on final passage, we will have that distinction made clear. Okay?
You're welcome. Mr. Glass, who is the next witness to testify?
Mr. Chairman, Deputy Commissioner Francis Healy would like to be recognized.
Commissioner -- Deputy Commissioner. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER HEALY: I just have one question. I don't know who from Law offered that email, but I want some communication with the Law Department on that very point. I also believe that the handling -- I mean, I helped draft that specific section that dealt with towers, not the lot. Therefore, I was told previously that it didn't apply and I remember having specifically that conversation with members of the Law Department, so I'm curious to see who authored that. And if you can forward that to me, I'd like to clarify that because --
Would you please, Mr. Glass. We need clarification, Mr. Glass, as to whether or not that included lots.
I will send that to you now, Deputy Commissioner. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER HEALY: Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, Councilmember Lozada would like to be recognized.
I was just going to say the same thing what the Deputy Commissioner said. I want to make sure there's clarity on this, because again this needs to be considered separately from the towing piece, right, the ticket-and-tow. This to me should require its own legislation that is very clear and very specific so that there is no confusion.
Agreed. That's why we're doing this. You're right. Thank you, Member Lozada.
Thank you. State your name for the record and please begin your testimony.
My name is Tonya Looney. I am acting as Community Manager at The Dane Apartments in Wynnefield, Philadelphia.
All right. Well, Ms. Harris asked me to come on board to speak to how the barnacle or the detention vehicle device has been working for us. We had an account with Barnacle before I actually took over as the community manager here, which was in about July of this year. We had private parking in the front of our building. There's a circle. We have loading zones in the front and the back. We have garage parking and we have private parking in the back of our building surface level parking. We were using the barnacle to enforce the parking enforcement agreed to by every resident who has private parking. When someone parks in private parking spaces that are paid for by residents, they are detained by the barnacle. It's always the same rate. Just as if you went to a gas station and you buy $30 worth of gas they might hold $100 on your card. So it's been our experience that there is a processing fee that holds a certain amount on an individual's card. What they end up paying in the end is about $175 to $200. Is that correct, Mikina?
Okay. So it's always a flat rate. The issue that we've had and why we use the barnacle is because I have paying maintenance out, oncall maintenance staff, hours of overtime and my predecessor Ms. Bernard managed the property before me, she's now taking more of a corporate role, we had no 2 answer to illegal parking. We called the police, and sometimes they are here to ticket cars and sometimes they don't show at all. So we had people who were taking advantage, people that were not even residents parking on our private property. Our gate which stops people from coming in and out of our surface parking garage in the back was broken because someone ran into it. When that happened, we had people from the neighborhood pulling into our private lot parking. The only recourse was to call, get them ticketed before we could get them towed. If the police did not show, then there was nothing we could do. We can't get a car towed without a ticket, which is why we started using the barnacle service. When I met Mikina during my tenure at The Dane, she decided to take over that whole parking enforcement role for us because it's really not the job of a maintenance team of a high-rise apartment. The job is to maintain the units, not to enforce parking. So we signed a contract with A Bob's Towing and Bob (inaudible) to assist us with enforcing the private parking on our lot and it's been working great. She's very helpful. She works with -- she works with the residents or the violators who are in other people's spots, and it's always been consistent with what's being charged. She even gives discounts. She'll waive fees, but she's providing a great service. I do agree that -- I do know that there are other providers who upcharge what barnacle, you know, charges regularly because that is not regulated. But the service in itself has been a lifesaver here. We no longer have the issue of residents who are not residents parking on our lot, even residents who are violators parking in our loading zones overnight, barnacle resolved that problem. If our gate goes down, they know that there's going to be a consequence, and that's really just a problem of private owners. We need consequence. And not to speak negatively of our police force, but we know that there is a lot that they have to do in the City of Philadelphia and parking enforcement is just adding to their plate, which is why sometimes they show, sometimes they don't because they're dealing with other high priority issues, so that has not been something that we can depend on, getting a ticket and a tow in this case.
Are there any questions from members of the Committee? (No response.)
Hi. My name is Nicole Eumes. I manage a property on 6451 Oxford Avenue and we are having a lot of issues with abandoned cars and people that are parking illegally, like on the fire zones and stuff like that. And it has been really, really hard getting the police here trying to get them tickets so they can tow them. Right now in the last week we have had like about three stolen cars on our property and we can't get them out. Only the police come and get them out. Hopefully with this new device we'll get a little help from them in getting them out. That's all.
Are there any questions for this witness? (No response.)
Yes, Mr. Chairman, that was our final witness for this resolution. The next thing we have is public comment and our public commenter is standing by.
Okay. Let's start with public comment. Who do we have first?
Mr. Chairman, there is one individual. Her name is Sara Reagan.
State your name for the record and please begin your testimony.
Hi. My name is Sara Reagan. On October 29th I was in a parking lot across as you turn off of Green Lane onto Main Street. Immediately on the right I pulled in. I paid for parking. Had met some friends for lunch across the street. And when I returned to my car, there was a yellow device on my windshield and it was raining. I put in the number to call which I thought was strange. It was called Payandrelease.com. I didn't feel comfortable that -- I didn't know what was going on to be honest. I had never seen anything like that before. So that was on October 29th. On I believe it was the 9th of November there was a newscast. I did feel like I was taken advantage of so I made a phone call to the towing company and spoke with Lisa and she -- we spoke for minutes actually that day. And so, we went back and forth about what they're calling a barnacle and why they decided to use that type of device. I don't know if it's legal or not. It didn't seem like from the newscast that the -- the law that they cited was that my car could not be booted or have anything put on it without a ticket from the police, so I'm not exactly sure what is the case. However, she asked me to give her hours. I had asked her 16 for a refund and she wanted to think 17 about it. So I thought that was 18 also strange. If there was even a 19 contemplation, then clearly 20 something was not right. So she and 21 I texted through the dispatcher. 22 For the next couple of days I did 23 not hear back from her. So I called again on the 15th and spoke with one of the secretaries there. I was on the phone with her for minutes 2 waiting and she had stated that Lisa 3 was in the meeting. 4 Eventually Lisa did get on 5 the phone. And in order to process 6 a refund, she told me she needed my 7 home address and that she would mail 8 me a check. That also sounded 9 strange considering when I had to 10 pay the ticket it was a Venmo 11 transaction, and I don't know, just everything about it seemed off. And she did agree to refund a portion of my payment which was originally $435, which they brought it down to 105 in order to take that device off my car, and I could not leave without that being done obviously. There was some confusion with the device number and the zone number with the parking lot. My friends did wait for me in their car. They didn't have a boot. It was just my car, so I'm not sure what the policy was in terms of who got booted and who didn't. But when I went back to my Venmo to see who the person was that I Venmo'd, I don't know if I'm pronouncing his name properly, but Ahmen Johnson was the name of the person who I Venmo'd. I'm not sure how he's involved with that particular towing company, but I can see at least 11 transactions from other people to 12 him in regards to these devices, and 13 the comments when they had made 14 their payment were either parking 15 scam, a ticket, car boot, things 16 like that. So it's clearly happened to more people than just me. I never did get a refund because I refused to give my home address. I didn't really feel that that was safe. So that's kind of my story. I would like to get a refund. I would like to know what the actual law is and how this hearing is going to stop that from happening to somebody else or put it in the law so that it happens legally.
Thank you so much for your testimony. To answer that is a part of what we are considering is there has to be predictability, there has to be consistency, there has to be monitoring of these types of devices. All that is being considered as a part of this legislation. What I'd like to also say is that there probably should be a meeting between Deputy Commissioner Healy, the Philadelphia Parking Authority, the City Solicitor's Office to kind of come to terms on what aspects where these devices would be prohibited. And so, we want to narrowly define what this legislation covers so that it gives people that are victims of barnacles at least some rules and guides on how they can conduct their affairs. And so, that's the purpose of this whole hearing. And so, we don't have an answer for you right away but please stay connected to this legislation. Then we will get to the answers of it.
Okay. Will someone reach out to me or I should just follow up with the --
If you will put your phone number in the chat, Mr. Glass will make sure your -- or your email in the chat, we will make sure that you stay connected with that.
Okay. I appreciate it. I really did feel like I was being taken advantage of. So thank you for taking the time to listen.
No, thank you for raising the issue. You and 6abc brought it to our attention because in various ways from the 7th to the 4th Districts we've been getting complaints. So thank you.
This resident mentioned that she was uncomfortable giving out her personal information, her address. Can we recommend that we put our office number or Mr. Glass's number in the chat so that she can reach out to him more privately is probably --
Thank you for that, Member Lozada. All right. Mr. Glass --
Also, if I may make one more comment. I'm only on an audio link so I can't actually see the chat or access the chat. Maybe somebody could --
-- 3417 and ask for Mr. Glass. Give us about 30 minutes.
All right. It's Anthony Glass. I've spoken with him before. I should give him a call?
Yeah. He has my email too, so I'll follow up with him. Thank you.
Hi. Yes, I just wanted to follow up with Ms. Reagan, I think it is. So just to clear that up, Ms. Reagan actually paid for another parking lot and she did not mention that here, but she understands that that's why she was told by Lisa that they would consider giving her a refund because it was recognized that she actually did pay for a parking lot that was two blocks down the street. She did not pay for the parking lot in which she was at, which is why the barnacle system is so great because you can actually tell all of that and it's tracked. Our refund process is to mail a check for bookkeeping purposes and she did not want to provide that, but it was offered to her. So I definitely wanted to follow up with that.
And if I may since I'm still on the line. I agree with that, so maybe that needs to also become a part of the conversation. My phone picked up a different -- I did actually mention that there was a problem with the zone number. And so, my phone picked up the lot that was down the street versus the one that was where I was parked and I didn't know the difference because it just said my parking was paid so I went about my business. It didn't tell me the address of the lot or anything like that. So if it's going to be picking up other lots within the area, that is going to be a problem for people. That is still going to be a problem because then you think you're parked legally and clearly the --
And if I may also say, there was a policy for a refund but there was no policy to get the money for me. There was no -- I didn't have to fill out any forms and I was asked to Venmo, which I don't know if that's being tracked for bookkeeping purposes. But it just seemed odd that a payment could be received that way but no refund could go that way.
So there is a lot of room for tightening up for regulations and policy going forward and we will consider that as a part of ongoing negotiations for this legislation. So thank you for your testimony. Thank you all. Mr. Glass, is that the last witness?
Mr. Chairman, there are no other witnesses for public comment at this time.
Thank you so very much. We will pause to allow the witnesses to disconnect and this will end our public hearing. And we will commence our public hearing to vote on actions regarding these bills and resolutions. Give us a minute. Okay. Mr. Glass. (No response.)
All right. Can we take the roll so that we can begin our public meeting.
Present. A quorum is present. This begins our public meeting. And the Chair now recognizes Vice-Chair Johnson for an amendment to Bill No. 230571.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I offer an amendment to Bill 17 No. 230571. A copy of the amendment has been circulated to all members of the Committee. I move that the amendment be approved.
All right. It has been moved and properly seconded that an amendment to Bill No. 230571 be approved. All those in favor will say aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it. The Chair now recognizes again Vice-Chair Johnson for a motion on Bill No. 230571 as amended.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that Bill No. 230751 as amended be reported from this Committee with a favorable recommendation and further move that the rules of Council be suspended to permit first reading of this bill at the next session of Council.
It has been approved -- moved and properly seconded that the amended Bill 14 230571 be approved. All those in favor will signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it. The Chair again recognizes Councilmember Johnson or Vice-Chair Johnson for the motion on Bill No. 1 230 -- 2
Thank 6 you, Mr. Chairman. 7 I move that Bill No. 230699 8 be reported from this Committee with 9 a favorable recommendation and 10 further move that the rules of 11 Council be suspended to permit first 12 reading of this bill at the next 13 session of Council. 14
It has 19 been moved and properly seconded 20 that we move Bill No. 230699 -- 21
699 from 23 this Committee with a favorable 24 recommendation and further move that 25 the rules of Council be suspended to permit next reading at our next session of Council. All those in favor will signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it. The Chair again recognizes Councilmember Johnson for a motion on Bill No. 230 --
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that Bill No. 230700 be reported from this Committee with a favorable recommendation and further move that the rules of Council be suspended to permit first reading of this bill at the next session of Council.
It has been moved and properly seconded that Bill No. 230700 be moved from this Committee with a favorable recommendation. All those in favor will signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it. This bill has been approved. I believe that's the last --
Yes, Mr. Chairman, that was our final bill for today's hearing.
So that concludes the business of the Committee on Public Safety regarding the following bills and resolutions. Thank you so much for your patience. Thank you so much for your actions. Have a great day.
Mr. Chairman, I just want to say thank you and thank you to all of my colleagues for unanimously supporting my exoneration legislation and to all the hard- working members of the Committee. Thank you everybody. I appreciate you.
Good job. (Hearing concluded at 3:12 p.m.) C E R T I F I C A T I O N I, hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence noted are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me in the foregoing matter, and that this is a correct transcript of the same. ______________________________ TANEHA CARROLL