Parking control officers protest ticket sweeps
Dozens of parking control officers picketed outside the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s Van Ness Avenue headquarters Thursday afternoon to protest the city’s plans to ramp up parking enforcement.
SFMTA officials said this month that they would soon begin “intensive” parking enforcement sweeps across the city to deter unsafe violations for pedestrians and cyclists. The plan calls for deploying extra parking control officers in each of the 11 supervisorial districts in the city on a rotating basis.
The parking control officers tasked with issuing citations are revolting against the plan to ramp up enforcement because the sweeps are set to happen at a time when officers say they’re facing increased aggression and threats of violence from upset drivers.
Mishan Schexnayder, a parking control officer who said she was assaulted on the job two years ago, said the announced parking sweeps “just put a bigger target on our back.”
“Us issuing tickets and taking money out of people’s pockets, yeah, (drivers) can get very aggressive and upset,” Schexnayder said during the protest. “But at the same time, we have a job to do.”
Trevor Adams, president of the SEIU Local 1021 union representing SFMTA frontline workers, said parking control officers found out about the plans to ramp up enforcement only after reading about it in the news.
Parking control officers at the agency have not been briefed about the enforcement sweeps by SFMTA officials, Adams said, adding that parking control officers in the city have been subject to threats and aggressive behavior by ticketed motorists “on a daily basis.”
“We definitely want to see an increase in foot patrols and response times when it comes to us calling for help from our police department and other law enforcement agencies,” Adams said. “We want to see additional training on how to deal with the ever changing streets of San Francisco.”
Parking control officers, station agents and transit cleaners protested what they described as “unsafe working conditions” ahead of labor negotiations with SFMTA management.
SFMTA spokesperson Erica Kato said in a statement that “safety is our top priority at the agency” and noted that crime “within our system” has dropped by 48% since 2018.
“We know how hard our employees work to keep San Francisco moving, and we are committed to a fair and safe workplace for all of our employees,” Kato said. “Our parking control officers are provided de-escalation training, self-defense tools, and have access to our internal dispatch center that communicates directly with SFPD for any assistance they need. We will continue to prioritize the safety and well-being of all of our employees.”
SFMTA Director Jeffrey Tumlin said at an April 16 board meeting that the agency planned to start intensive parking enforcement sweeps in each of the city’s 11 supervisorial districts.
The parking sweeps, scheduled to begin by May, will deploy additional parking control officers to a specific district each week to enforce parking violations on top of the agency’s regular citywide enforcement.
The SFMTA plans to deploy the extra contingent of parking control officers to a different district each week, meaning that every district should expect to see the weeklong sweeps happen about once every three months.
Parking control officers deployed as part of the intensive sweeps are expected to enforce all parking violations. However, the agency has directed them to prioritize issuing citations for parked vehicles blocking sidewalks, bike lanes and daylit zones (where a space is required near crosswalks or stop signs).
Mayor London Breed announced in late March that she directed the transportation agency to increase enforcement of unsafe parking violations as part of her updated Vision Zero plan. The mayor’s announcement came after the city’s 10th anniversary of the Vision Zero pledge to end all traffic deaths and severe injuries as well as after the horrific West Portal crash that killed a family of four.
More frequent parking enforcement was just one of the directives included in the mayor’s plan to improve traffic safety. On Thursday, San Francisco police also unveiled a deployment plan to crack down on unsafe driving at dangerous intersections across the city.