Richmond is now down to one parking enforcement person for the entire city of 110,000, Amanda Le Gaux (alegaux@richmondpd.net), who offers the following contact phone numbers for residents requesting service. She laments, “it is difficult to be proactive with enforcement due to the never ending list of complaints that come in monthly. Regarding parking and abandoned vehicle complaints; it is taking longer than usual to conduct any initial enforcement at this time due to the short staffing.”

• Vehicles parked on the lawn: Code Enforcement @ 510 621-1279 or 510 621-1282

• Vehicles blocking driveways and/or suspicious vehicles that appear to be stolen: It’s best to contact our non-emergency police line so that if indeed the vehicle is blocking a driveway or it is discovered that a vehicle is indeed stolen, an officer or cadet can take care of it as soon as possible that same day. Please note, if the “suspicious” vehicle is not stolen our dispatchers will forward the information to the Police/Parking Abandoned Vehicle Hotline.

• Non-emergency Police public line  510 233-1214

• Active Sideshow – I (Amanda) contacted dispatch regarding these type of activities and they prefer the citizens call 911 only if the sideshow is occurring at the moment of the call. If they want to talk to an officer regarding sideshows in general ONLY, they can contact the non-emergency line to possibly talk to the officer who is assigned to the specific area.

• Abandoned Vehicle Hotline – For abandoned vehicles ONLY @ 510 620-6644

• Parking Enforcement Desk Line – For general info and citation concerns or questions ONLY @ 510 621-1216

Why doesn’t Richmond fund traffic and parking enforcement anymore? The answer is the diversion of funds by the Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA) controlled City Council to their other priorities. For example, the Richmond Rent Program has a budget of nearly $3 million, and the Reimagining Public Safety program has a budget of $6.83 million, $3 million of which was diverted from the Police Department.