Quincy Police Chief Rob Copley says he plans to recommend the City Council do away with timed parking regulations in the downtown area.

"It's not cost-effective to enforce those ordinances," he told aldermen at Monday's council meeting.

Copley made his comments in response to a question from Alderman Bob Klingele, D-3, regarding a recent special enforcement of the timed parking regulations in the downtown area.

The department hasn't had a full-time parking enforcement officer on duty in recent months because of a personnel change. However, at the request of the Historic Quincy Business District, Copley assigned an officer to the downtown area for about 10 days to step up enforcement of the parking regulations through the holiday season to help ensure there was adequate parking for shoppers in front of local stores.

Copley said the officer wrote a little more than 200 tickets during that period. The fine for each ticket was $5.

Klingele questioned whether Copley thought that was an effective use of an officer's time. "That really troubles me that we're using full-time trained policemen to enforce parking in any shopping area for $5 tickets," Klingele said.

Copley said he assigned the officer to this duty only because the HQBD asked him to do so. "We didn't do that on our own," he said.

Copley agreed it's not cost-effective to have a sworn officer handing out $5 tickets. He said the department also lost money when a civilian officer was handing out parking tickets.

Copley said he thinks the time has come to do away with timed parking altogether.

"We've got no consensus among the businesses in the uptown area," he said. "About half of them want us to enforce it. About half of them don't want us to enforce it."

Copley said he has urged the council in recent years either to raise the fine to a higher amount so it would act as a better deterrent for parking abusers or eliminate the parking rules altogether. Neither action was taken.

Copley said police keep enforcing the parking rules on a complaint-driven basis, but he feels that's not a good policy. "You can't hit or miss enforcement of those laws," he said. "You've either got to strongly enforce it or not enforce it at all."

Copley told aldermen he plans to come forward "soon" with a proposal to repeal the parking ordinance altogether.

"I'll be your biggest supporter on that," Klingele told him.

Mayor John Spring indicated he may support such a move himself.

"The vast majority of business owners really would prefer not to have the timed parking," he said.

-- ehusar@whig.com/221-3378