Bridging the divide City councilman wants police, parking authority to share information

Hundreds of cars are reported stolen in Pittsburgh every year and wind up on a list maintained by city police. Separately, Pittsburgh Parking Authority enforcement officers scan hundreds of thousands of license plates to monitor residential permit parking areas and boot vehicles for unpaid fines.

And never the twain have met, until now.

“That data is not being shared back and forth,” city Councilman Dan Gilman said. “We could easily have a parking authority officer write a ticket for a stolen vehicle and no one would know. … It’s a prime example of one arm of government not knowing what the other arm of government is doing.”

According to the city police’s annual report, 676 vehicles were reported stolen in the city in 2013, up from 628 in 2012. In 2013, city police cleared 34 percent of those cases, well above the 2012 national average of about 12 percent. The police bureau’s 2014 report is not yet finished, a spokeswoman said.

Mr. Gilman wants to bridge the divide with legislation being introduced today that would authorize the mayor, the police chief, the director of the city’s Public Safety Department and the parking authority to enter into a cooperative agreement “for the purpose of sharing data in order to facilitate the recovery of wanted or stolen vehicles and enforcement of other violations, identify wanted persons and assist in monitoring Amber Alerts.”

According to the proposed resolution, the information shared will include license plate numbers and location of the vehicles and the date and time of the vehicle enforcement.

Mr. Gilman said the proposal has not been met with

by either entity.

“I certainly don’t expect any hurdles, and the technology of sharing is incredibly easy,” he said.

Dave Onorato, parking authority executive director, could not be reached for comment. In response to a 2013 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette public records request on storage of license-plate information, Mr. Onorato said the authority began deleting information collected by its vehicle-mounted license plate reader cameras on a daily basis.

Pittsburgh Police Chief Cameron McLay said he had not yet reviewed the legislation and could not comment.