Parking fines increased in the downtown area

ANTIGO — At its meeting Wednesday night, the Antigo City Council voted 8-0 to approve an ordinance change to raise parking fines both for vehicles that overstay one or two-hour parking limits downtown and illegally park in handicapped spaces.

The new ordinance increases fines from $3 to $25 for vehicles that overstay two-hour parking limits downtown from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday through Saturday. Fines will increase to $35 if not paid within 48 hours.

It also increases fines for handicapped parking violations from $30 to $100, and then to $125 if not paid within 48 hours.

Prior to the vote at Wednesday’s meeting, no discussion of the measure, which has been discussed at the committee level since April, took place.

When interviewed about the matter in June, Antigo Police Chief Dan Duley said that fines for two-hour parking violations were the lowest among all parking violations in the city, and barely worth the effort in pursuing.

“It hasn’t been updated in many years, and the $3 parking ticket is really ineffective for the parking violations, for the time violations in the downtown area,” Duley said. “There was a recent complaint of some downtown parking, so I thought now was the time to get that changed and bring it up to make it a more effective enforcement than what we had with a $3 ticket.”