Send this story Print this story

Adjust text size

Uploaded: Friday, April 17, 2009, 9:20 AM

Residents alarmed by burglar-system fine
$250 late fee for residential-alarm permit called 'outrageous'

by Sue Dremann
Palo Alto Online Staff

Posted by Resident, a resident of the College Terrace neighborhood, on Apr 17, 2009 at 10:31 am

The City Council, the Planning & Building dept., the Utilities Dept all love to milk the citizens of Palo Alto for as much as they can get. Just another example of how the the City of Palo workers love to 'stick it' to the citizens of Palo Alto. It is an outrage!!!

Posted by Resident, a resident of the Crescent Park neighborhood, on Apr 17, 2009 at 11:18 am

The longer I live in Palo Alto the angrier and more frustrated I become with our City Government. This is a ridiculous fee structure. I can understand a mounting penalty for a false alarm, but not a $250 penalty for a late $35 permit fee. Shouldn't our city officials work with the community, not against?!

Posted by Lenny Park, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Apr 17, 2009 at 11:41 am

comparing this to a drivers license or a car registration is not a good comparisoon since DMV always sends out renewal notification and it is possible to renew online.

Posted by southpalyresident, a resident of the Greenmeadow neighborhood, on Apr 17, 2009 at 11:49 am

If there's a change in policy, then there ought to be a notification of that change in policy. I've gotten notices from the PAPD and the PAPD as well as Janice Hall has been gracious in its and her handling of the alarm fee process. Now, we're not going to get a notice? And that is city mandated?

Amadeo cited driver license renewals as a similar situation? I get a notification about three months before for my driver license renewal. The attitude of the city is asinine. if the city wants to claim this is not a gouge tactic to increase revenue, then it should stop acting like it is a tactic to gouge revenue. Let me cite the 'duck" illustration: if it smells, looks and walks like one, then it probably is one. Truly atrocious!

Posted by Concerned, a resident of the Old Palo Alto neighborhood, on Apr 17, 2009 at 12:22 pm

I installed an alarm myself in 2006, and I failed to get a permit for about one year after install; and one false alarm was sent to the police during that time. I was not fined but warned to get the permit asap. I did and paid only the $35 fee. I seem to be in the wrong worse than these people; so why was I treated differently?

Posted by Art, a resident of the University South neighborhood, on Apr 17, 2009 at 12:37 pm

I also was required to pay the $250 fine. I would like to bring this up to the city council. Anyone interested in joining this action, please send email to as1@abcandm.com.

Posted by Andy, a resident of the Evergreen Park neighborhood, on Apr 17, 2009 at 1:36 pm

I let a DMV renewal sticker expired and was fine over $300. When I called DMV and told them I never received (true) the renewal notice in the mail, they said sorry, but it is your responabilty to know when your sticker expires and should have contacted the DMV for the amount.

Posted by How late were you?, a resident of the Crescent Park neighborhood, on Apr 17, 2009 at 1:56 pm

Really? $300? That's not what their site says: Web Link

Registration Fee penalty for renewal applications:

- Late one to 10 days ($10)

- Late 11 to 30 days ($15)

- Late 31 days to (and including) one year ($30)

- Late more than one year to (and including) two years ($50)

- Late more than two years ($100)

So, Palo Alto's $35 alarm permmit fee attracts a $250 fine for being 1 day late. DMV's several hundred dollar vehicle registration fee only attracts $100 for being 2 years late.

And the city claims it's not a gauge tactic!

Posted by PA Citizen, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on Apr 17, 2009 at 2:20 pm

I hope everyone will take your outrage and bring this issue to the city counsel to get them to overhaul the fine structure. I've been through this, too, there are problems with the false alarm structure, too, where opportunities are lost to use it to deter false alarms, and it gets used as a source of revenue (at a significant cost of goodwill from the public).

In all of these situations, I have felt that the letter of the law is trumping the spirit of the law, so no wonder people feel they are being gouged (they probably are).

With false alarms, for example, any alarm is judged as false if the police find no overt signs of a theft. Even if your door is wide open when they get there, they will judge it a false alarm if you don't immediately recognize if something has been stolen or if the alarm may have frightened someone away (as happened to me).

I have looked at the statistics on false alarms and the alarm fine structure, and can see a very different structure would do a better job of deterring false alarms while resulting in lower fines to the public, but have heard from the above-mentioned city employees that they can't do this because people would get "mad". Hmmm.

Couldn't we fix this problem, and find a more constructive use of time for the above three senior city employees? The employees can't do it, it has to come from the city counsel and the code. (And the direction of the counsel on how to interpret the code.)

Posted by kb, a resident of the Crescent Park neighborhood, on Apr 17, 2009 at 3:45 pm

Wow, 3,160 alarms in one year requiring 10,000 manhours of police time. That translates to roughly 1.6 hours per alarm for two police staff. Sounds expensive. Perhaps there should be a charge for every false alarm to help offset the cost of the police work.

I wonder what percentage of homeowners and renters have alarm systems. Seems like those who dont are paying for those who do because the annual fee covers a small percentage of the police time spent answering the alarms.

Posted by Ada, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Apr 17, 2009 at 3:52 pm

A $250 penalty for a late $35 permit fee. This is daylight robbery! Who came up with such a horrendous fee!

Posted by wb, a resident of the Green Acres neighborhood, on Apr 17, 2009 at 6:40 pm

I was also fined and didn't receive a renewal notice. I suspect they purposefully "forgot" to send the renewals so they could fine all of us and make up for the huge budget deficit they are running. How ironic that it's the government that's robbing us not the thiefs the alarms were supposed to protect us against.

Posted by Resident, a resident of Los Altos, on Apr 17, 2009 at 7:23 pm

I am shocked by the apparent abuse of power by the City of Palo Alto. The original $250 fine appears to have been intended for residents who have not registered their alarms ,not for residents who have inadvertently failed to pay their permit fees ,due to the City's failure to notify the residents in a timely manner. Other cities adjoining Palo Alto send out such notices , why can't Palo Alto manage this simple task. If the cost of such mailers are prohibitive the City should e-mail such reminder notices. The cost of the fine is disproportionate relative to the alarm permit fee and the City of Palo Alto's attitude conveys arrogance and a complete lack of sensitivity to the residents in these times of severe economic hardship. Not withstanding the City's response it appears that the revenue generated from such fines are the main goal.

Posted by Outside Observer, a resident of another community, on Apr 17, 2009 at 7:40 pm

Many Palo Altans hold City employees in contempt, thinking they are over paid, under-worked, incompetent zeros.

Many City employees hold equal contempt for the treatment they get from Palo Altans.

City employees are doing what they can to get over on those they hate. It's an emotional but logical reaction as far as I can see.

"Don't bite the hand that feeds" cuts both ways some times.

Posted by tennislobber, a resident of the Downtown North neighborhood, on Apr 17, 2009 at 7:43 pm

I received a bill for $250 without any explanation. They said it was because nobody told them about the alarm. I keep calling ADT asking why they never told Palo Alto, and I get no answer. They never told me there was an annual fee. How can the city charge us and not tell us why?

Tennislobber

Posted by resident, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on Apr 17, 2009 at 8:20 pm

The $250 fine is absurd. If the city doesn’t send a bill, then the alarm owner should not have to pay. Unfortunately, many government officials are accountable to no one, at least no one who cares, and most council members will find excuses for not wanting to address the matter if the past is an indication.

The buck stops with the city council; so the root cause of this problem is the attitude of many council members, including many past members. Such people either support nastiness and arrogance or choose to ignore it. Here are just a few examples: a) an abusive high-level manager allowed to keep her job, b) criminal prosecution for hedges that were too high (consciously ignored by council), c) a $150,000 fine by staff for two messy yards, reduced to $50,000 by the council after two inept hearings, and finally settled for $5,000. There are countless other examples.

It is ironic that council has rules about politeness and one member was recently criticized for not being polite, while at the same time, the council ignores the way some staff treats residents.

As long as each case of city misbehavior is ignored by the council and most citizens, nothing will change.

As others have mentioned, DMV behaves in a similar, arrogant manner. DMV levied a large late penalty on a renewal they never sent. DMV’s position is that they have no obligation to send a renewal notice. The DMV computer has a software bug in title transfers that sometimes leads to no renewal being sent. They know about the bug, but don’t care. After they “fixed” the registration in the computer, they failed to send a renewal the following year.

Posted by ann, a resident of Los Altos Hills, on Apr 17, 2009 at 8:35 pm

THIS WOULDN'T HAPPEN AT NORDSTROMS..they know how to treat a customer...and the fine and decent people of palo alto are what make palo alto a great town...how dare your city government treat residents like this....DMV and city stools...pay attention to FASTRAK..if they can handle millions of people crossing all those bridges every day...surely you can handle properly billing your residents for a little old alarm fee...

Posted by rr, a resident of the Southgate neighborhood, on Apr 17, 2009 at 10:57 pm

If alarm companies are installing in communities that require permits and fees, it seems as though it is their responsibility to inform clients (or potential clients) of these particular ordinances. It just seems like good business practice, if not common sense.

It is a good idea to have online reminders from the City, as well as a mailing and pay options, since this seems to be greener and easier for lots of people.

I'm assuming responsible adults know that although certain fees are not strictly enforced (library fines, Costo memberships, etc.) we all know that it is right and fair to pay and should do so.

I also think that the fine is excessive and should include 2 notices, and a pro rated late fee structure to ensure compliance, such as the DMV has. I'm sure it can be changed through a calm approach. Please do not take it out on the clerks, etc., as they likely have nothing to do with this outrageous penalty.

Again, lets not forget the complicity of the alarm companies. I think some of you may prevail in small claims, if they did not inform you of the ordinance. They should know.

After all, it's their business.

Posted by Andy, a resident of the Evergreen Park neighborhood, on Apr 17, 2009 at 11:24 pm

The DMV fine for my late payment was not just $10 or $30. It was over $300 for about three months late! This was about four years ago, so many they change the fine amount to a more reasonable amount.

Posted by resident, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on Apr 18, 2009 at 8:55 am

Here's some food for thought. The Supreme Court has consistently held that, to be consistent with the Constitution, government fines cannot be grossly out of line with the cost of collection.

It used to be that if you did not register your alarm, you were given the fine but it was waived if you registered within a period of time.

The main complaint here is of citizens who did register their alarms and paid their fees, but were not billed as they had been in the past. The fine of $250 is probably unsupportable in court, but someone has to wage the battle, and it would be expensive on both sides. The city, however, is asking for it (expensive litigation eventually) when they use fines as revenue streams like this -- this alarm example is not the only one.

I agree that there are too many false alarms, but I also think the fines for false alarms are also structured more to bring in revenue than deter false alarms. The city should fine for the first offense, but the rules of what constitutes a false alarm should be clearly spelled out and not subject to so much interpretation after the fact. There should be provisions to waive the fines if the alarm company is at fault, and to fine alarm companies if they do things that contribute to false alarms (such as failing to maintain the contact lists whereby homeowners are notified when the alarms go off).

The fine for the first offense should be relatively low, so that it puts people on notice that there are fines and gets their cooperation without getting them angry. In fact, if the police did a one-time waiver for the first alarm, but warned people that the second within a year (which should be higher) would not be waived, this would probably bring down the total number of false alarms significantly because most of them happen within the first two (which are now not fined). It would also accomplish the goal of reducing alarms without engendering the kind of bad will for the police that the current policy does.

Posted by John the Man, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on Apr 18, 2009 at 10:13 am

Oh puhleeze.... stop whining. If you don't like the rules regarding alarm permitting, then don't have an alarm. You alarm people are riding the backs of the rest of us as it is. Do you REALLY think that the true cost those 98% of false alarm responses by the police is covered just by alarm fees and fines? Give the rest of us a break and step out into reality.

Posted by anonymous, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on Apr 18, 2009 at 12:57 pm

This is NOT City of Palo of Palo Alto workers "sticking it to the citizens". Any role city workers play here is in enforcing policy developed by administrators/elected officials.

Posted by anonymous, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on Apr 18, 2009 at 12:57 pm

This is NOT City of Palo of Palo Alto workers "sticking it to the citizens". Any role city workers play here is in enforcing policy developed by administrators/elected officials.

Posted by CMR:369:01, a resident of the Crescent Park neighborhood, on Apr 18, 2009 at 3:34 pm

John the man, Oh, puhleeze, do you even bother to do any research? There are over 3500 alarms cards on file in Palo Alto. The $35 fee alone brings in $122,000 a year, which is $22,000 more than it now costs to cover the false alarms according to the city web site.

So, yeah, they are not only using the fee subsidize you, they are then further gouging where they can to the tune of another $250.

Posted by resident, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on Apr 18, 2009 at 6:53 pm

The registration fee was introduced to cover the costs.

John, if you don't have anything constructive to say, and it bothers you so much when other people try to make this city a nice place to live, why don't you take it somewhere else? No one is forcing you to read these posts.

Right now, there is NO fine for the first two false alarms. If you look at the number of false alarms in the year and the number of residences, it's clear that the bulk of the problem is the first two false alarms.

After the first two, the third one results in an enormous fine that can be devastating to the budget of a family. I can say from personal experience that when the alarm company is at fault, for example, there is no leniency. If you get two false alarms in a month, with your alarm company at fault, or even if it scared away a would-be thief, there goes (went) my family's grocery money for the month. When the police do not apprehend a suspect -- even if the door is wide open -- your alarm will be judged false and you will be fined.

I think the fine structure could be changed to do a better job at deterring false alarms while not gouging people who are trying to follow the rules to the best of their ability.

The purpose of the registration (according to meeting records) is to cover the costs. The purpose of the alarm fees is to deter false alarms, not raise revenue for the general fund, which would present a conflict of interest. In this case, the complaint of these people is not even because they allowed false alarms, the city didn't send the usual bill for the registration and they were fined.

The cost of these fines is WAY out of proportion with any harm or cost the city incurred because of this, and is therefore actually unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has ruled on a number of cases that have made this eminently clear.

Believe it or not, the reason we have this provision in our US Constitution about unreasonable fines is exactly because governments can get carried away gathering revenue through unreasonable fines where citizens have little or no recourse. In this case, the citizens didn't even have false alarms, and they didn't even fail to register their alarms. They paid late because they didn't get the usual bills. The city didn't even have any additional collection costs as a result -- if they had simply sent out the usual bills, they would have collected. The government suffered no harm except a few pennies in interest.

The gripe people have is being hit with stiff fees even though they were registering their systems and paying when they were billed. If Palo Alto is failing to bill people and then fining them, they are acting like the corrupt banks that got us into this economic crisis.

City Counsel Take Note; The loss of goodwill because of practices like this will eventually cost the city far more than it is taking in with these windfall fines.

Posted by common sense, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Apr 18, 2009 at 8:04 pm

The best way to change this is vote in the coming city council election for new city council members, and not for any of the incumbents. The incumbents are all idealogues, pushing their favorite cause (Klein & Drekmeier making the city a leader in the "Green" movement, Barton in providing subsidized housing for low & moderate income families). All three will back the staff in most anything that doesn't interfere with their cause. When was the last time any of these three represented the residents of Palo Alto? When they endorsed the High Speed Rail? Plastic bag Ban? Hiring an Environment Coordinator with the city budget in deficit? Spending $350,000 sponsoring the "Senior Games"? Continual raising of the utility rates, even though wholesale energy costs have been dropping? Zero waste goal which is driving up the garbage collection rates? Adding low income housing which provides no property tax revenues, but overcrowds the neighborhood schools?

Posted by Paid & Fined, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Apr 20, 2009 at 11:29 am

I paid my permit fee on time, and was still charged $250. The check was cashed but they had no record of my having paid. I had to show them the renewed permit sticker they sent me as proof of payment.

Posted by Joan, a resident of the College Terrace neighborhood, on Apr 20, 2009 at 11:35 am

When I first moved to Palo Alto, we had a burglar alarm installled in our house, not knowing we needed a permit, since we didn't need one in our previous location. I never received a notice for a $35. fee (although I was told it was sent). After receiving the $250. fine, I went to explain the situation. The "judge" treated me like a criminal and was rude, inconsiderate, and didn't listen to anything I had to say. Needless to say, I had to pay the fine. I later learned that an older man who had been attending to his wife in the ICU at Stanford Hospital for two months straight, also had to pay! This judge acts like a dictator and obviously hates his job. But maybe this is a good idea, so the Palo Alto can sponser one organic farmer in their "special" farmer's market.....

Posted by narnia, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Apr 20, 2009 at 11:39 am

How late were you?, a resident of the Crescent Park neighborhood, on Apr 17, 2009 at 1:56 pm

Really? $300? That's not what their site says:

well $300.00 was the fine paid also at the dmv for an in state late registration of an out of state car

Posted by narnia, a resident of the Monroe Park neighborhood, on Apr 20, 2009 at 3:08 pm

For all who think they would have a successful case against the city for a fine of $250.00 just a few excerpts from another substantively similar case:

From the Baltimore Sun:

"A recent push by a city-hired collections agency ....overdue parking tickets has sparked complaints from some who say the fines .... are excessive.

....Daniel Wemhoff claimed that he never received the original $23 ticket in 2005, and his fine ballooned to $519.

But in December, a federal judge ruled for the city, saying the penalties were not "grossly disproportional" to the underlying offense, according to court records."

The whole article:

Web Link

Posted by aha, a resident of the Crescent Park neighborhood, on Apr 20, 2009 at 3:45 pm

re: the above article... $16 dollars a month would have been reasonable here. $250 for a day late isn't.

Posted by narnia, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Apr 20, 2009 at 6:18 pm

ah ah,

the judge didn't say anything about $16/month. Drivers claim never having received notice of the dues and the city took (in some cases) 3 years to notify the driver they owed (raising the possibility that the city is doing it on purpose to charge high fines). The judge still said i was the city's right to do so and that even over $700 was not disproportionate. I agree that $250 seems to be too high. The question is : is it illegal? I would be really more concerned with the fact that several people claim they never received notice which means that either they did or the post office didn't deliver. of course, city employees would never not sent notices in the hope of a better revenue stream. That would be unthinkable and it only happens in the some of the eastern seaboard cities, of course.

The fact remains that with or without notices people better pay on time.

Posted by citizen, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on Apr 20, 2009 at 6:26 pm

narnia,

You are comparing apples to oranges. In the case you mention, the fine is actually $16 for every month a ticket goes unpaid. The large totals are for people who purposefully left their fines unpaid for years, which the first subject of the story admits to. The fine is a reasonable multiple of the original fine, in fact, it's lower than leaving, say, a credit card unpaid for a month. The cost of collecting traffic fines is actually significant for government agencies, and the situation with people avoiding paying their traffic fines is also significant and a part of the calculation. (As for the case mentioned, how can you not "receive" the original ticket?)

In recent cases, the Supreme Court has laid out some pretty specific guidelines when it comes to the Constitutionality of fines. (Although, those guidelines and the big case that prompted them, that State Farm bad faith class action auto case, may not have happened early enough to affect the cited case here.) I can see why the above example didn't win.

But Palo Alto would probably not win, and whether it did or not is irrelevant, the city is being penny-wise and pound foolish with these practices, and asking for litigation which is expensive whether they win or lose.

In this situation locally, people were not avoiding paying a fine, they were not avoiding anything actually. They were playing by the rules, but were fined a huge amount when the city changed the game (didn't send out bills that they previously had). In this case, the fine is way out of proportion to the offense, because the government suffered no real harm, and there was no civic enforcement purpose that was served through the levy of the fine (such as would be served by deterring traffic ticket scofflaws, a real problem for municipalities). THIS situation smacks of trying to raise revenue to keep the jobs fining people, don't you think?

In this case, there is no purpose that the additional fine serve, because if the city simply sent out its usual notice, they would have been paid. Again, the government suffered no harm worth the fine levied.

This is not the first time I have come across this type of abuse of fines in an apparent attempt to raise revenue. It makes the city a less nice place to live, it creates a negative atmosphere and bad will between citizens and the city government. Ultimately, I think that has incalculable costs that far outweigh any immediate revenue garnered by being heavy-handed with fines. And, the actual purpose the fines are supposed to serve in the first place are lost or even countered.

Posted by citizen, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on Apr 20, 2009 at 6:36 pm

I want to add that these kinds of heavy-handed fines do indeed make ordinary people, trying to live by the rules, feel like criminals -- which UNDERMINES their trust in city and law-enforcement institutions.

By contrast, if the rules and fines were set up to do the best job for their purpose and levied with some sense of the spirit of the law over the letter of the law rather than vice versa, this would actually given citizens a sense of security and confidence.

Rather than making lofty statements about "civic engagement", the city counsel should be walking the walk.

Posted by narnia, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Apr 20, 2009 at 8:03 pm

citizen you are incorrect. The implication stated in court (besides what is in the article) is that parking authority purposefully didn't send the fines so that they would accrue. In which case what you are looking at is a $600 fine for a $23 ticket. The judge considered all that and still found for the parking authority in fact saying that cities have the right to levy fines to great extent. It is not the case that Palo Alto is doing it on purpose, I hope, but the cases are similar in their substance- big fines for lack of payment of a small amount.

Posted by citizen, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on Apr 22, 2009 at 1:25 pm

narnia,

You are missing the main legal point. In the traffic fine case you mention, people incurred the fines by doing something wrong, something the fines are supposed to prevent. People are given an initial notice when they get a ticket in the first place. That ticket generally has instructions on how to pay.

Furthermore, collecting taxes and parking fines has a higher overhead, and there is a deterrent aspect to the additional fees, which has been dealt with in many other cases nationwide and has not been deemed Unconstitutional. The case you mention falls more under these precedents.

And again, the basic issue is that the Supreme Court has ruled that the fine has to be a reasonable multiple of the governments harm and cost of collection. These parking fines were only $16 a month. The fine Palo Altans face for paying their registration fee late when there was no bill sent was $250, when the government suffered no harm (quite different from the taxation/traffic violation cases).

In this Palo Alto case, the citizens were living by the rules. They had not broken a law then avoided paying the fine, as above. Furthermore, the government had no additional collection costs, as the late notice they sent cost them no more than had they sent the notices on time. As taxpayers, I would note that this practice actually costs us more because we have to support several staff members for this whole fine structure.

It makes ordinary people trying to live by the rules feel like criminals, which will ultimately cost the city far more than any windfall revenues it collects through such practices. And it is begging for a lawsuit -- whether you agree or not, and whether the city wins or not is irrelevant. Suits like these cost money, and they wouldn't be on the landscape if the city were simply trying to do the right thing.