Seattle begins refunding parking tickets over legal mix-up
Jun 6, 2022, 6:16 AM
(Jason Burrows via Flickr)
(Jason Burrows via Flickr)
The city of Seattle will begin refunding thousands of parking tickets Monday.
City of Seattle to dismiss and refund approximately 200,000 parking tickets
This affects almost 100,000 people who got tickets between September 1st of 2021 to April 5th of 2022.
Another 100,000 people will get their tickets voided.
The voids and refunds are because parking officers did not have the authority to write citations during that period.
Individuals unsure of whether a parking ticket they received qualifies for refund or dismissal can visit this web page to search by license plate number or citation.
Seattle council votes to move parking enforcement away from SPD
On August 16, 2021, Council Bill 120148 was passed unanimously by the City Council and signed on August 18, 2021, officially moving PEOs from SPD to SDOT. Council intended special commissions to be issued for city employees who were not within SPD to enforce certain aspects of the traffic code. Special commissions are issued by the Chief of Police to personnel who perform law enforcement responsibilities outside of SPD.
This technical step was not taken immediately upon PEOs’ relocation to SDOT in 2021.
Upon learning that these special commissions had not been properly issued, the Harrell administration issued a directive to SPD and SDOT to complete the commissions. Completed commissions for all PEOs were delivered by April 5th. Parking tickets issued after April 5 are consistent with the city’s ordinance and are unaffected by this action.
