Diane - 

March 1st sounds great.  Here are my general ideas for the program.  If we need more information I am happy to sit down with any staff this week.

“Food for fines” General program guidelines –

The Food for fines program is designed to be a year-round program offering an alternative, charitable payment option in lieu of the normal $3 downtown parking ticket.  This program would apply only to standard overtime parking tickets and would not be available as an option for any moving violations, illegal handicapped parking violations or other non-metered violations.  A ‘currency’ pay-off rate of $1/non-perishable food item would apply. Individuals may also make their donation in lieu of payment to the city as a monetary donation to said food pantry.

“Food for fines” administrative implementation –

The Food for fines program is designed to be staff time neutral, and as such no food collection will be done by any city staff.  The only additional responsibility that would be placed upon the city would be the creation of “donation receipt” booklets to be distributed to participating vendors.  Charitable food pantries throughout the community that wish to participate (such as Harvesters, Heartland Community Health, Just Food, etc..) could request from the city a donation receipt booklet and would issue receipts upon request to any donor.  These receipts would indicate date of donation and amount of donation.  These receipts would then be placed in the standard yellow envelope and mailed to the city or placed in one of our payment boxes.  Upon receiving this receipt, staff would record the payment as received in the same manner we would record a $3 cash payment.   

“Food for fines” lost revenue –

To account for potential lost revenue as a result of this program, the city of Lawrence will raise downtown overtime parking fees from $3 to $4.  No change will be made in the cost of purchasing metered time, thus there will be no increased fee to law-abiding downtown guests.