Ticketing stolen cars is a problem in Oakland, grand jury report says
OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) -- Imagine having your car stolen and weeks later discovering that stolen car was ticketed for multiple parking violations. It's happening in Oakland, and an Alameda County grand jury recently investigated.
ABC7 News went to the place where the city of Oakland keeps vehicles that have been abandoned or stolen.
If you find your car here, many people in Oakland can tell you what to expect when you pick up your vehicle.
"You have to pay a towing, you have to pay the fees and the storage, and you have to pay the tickets, and you have to pay more than the value of the car," said Ricardo Vindiola, an Oakland city worker.
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"Once you get so many, a certain amount of tickets, then they'll pick it up and impound it, and then you have to pay for those tickets and the impound," said Oakland resident Everaldo Pelayo.
According to an Alameda County Civil Grand Jury report, ticketing stolen vehicles for being parked illegally before they are towed, is a likely scenario in Oakland.
That's why Pelayo said he placed a tracker in his truck, hoping to quickly find his vehicle if it ever got stolen. The truck he drives has been stolen twice.
Even Oakland City Councilmember Noel Gallo has a staff member who had their car stolen and parking tickets issued.
"Yeah, if it's your car and someone stole it, and it's in a no parking zone, then you wind up with the ticket, because it's your license plate," Gallo said.
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The Civil Grand Jury discovered that the parking control technicians have no tools, no kind of technology to determine if a vehicle is stolen or not.
The city will eventually reimburse car owners for the ticket costs, but that process takes months.
In that report, the Civil Grand Jury concluded the following: "If OakDOT could immediately identify a parked stolen vehicle, it would be beneficial, not only to the vehicle owner, but also would save the city time and money by not having to rescind and dismiss tickets."
"I agree. Because right now, when one of the challenges that we have, we did have people working three days a week from home. So when my resident comes to me and says, 'Noel, I have this ticket, and I don't know what to do,' I walk them over to the ticket office, but there's nobody there," Gallo said.
ABC7 News wanted answers, so we went to the Department of Transportation customer desk. The one employee there sent us to city hall.
As we have seen before, we found Oakland City Hall, on a Monday, with very few employees. We were then told that the person who could answer our questions was not at city hall at the moment.
Instead of talking to us in person, they sent us a statement.
The city told us that "fewer than 2 out of 1,000 tickets are inadvertently issued to stolen vehicles."
Oakland now says it's working on updating its "parking citation management system" which would give them access to law enforcement databases, including so-called "hotlists" of stolen vehicles used by police departments.
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But, dumping and ticketing cars is not the only pressing issue in Gallo's district .
"This is my truck of illegal dumping we just picked up," he said as a big truck entered the parking lot, full to the brim with discarded items left on the streets.
Gallo highlighted the impact illegal dumping is having on neighborhoods in East Oakland.
"But every day you see that, we pick up eight truckloads of illegal dumping -- a day," Gallo said.
His workers often witness people discarding just about anything in nearby parks, even leaving evidence behind, like unopened letters with addresses.
"Last Saturday, I 'catched' the people throwing away. Look these people, he is dumping the garbage," said Vindiola as he showed us photo after photo of people dumping their belongings.
Vindiola told us he refrains from confronting them, because he says it's too dangerous.
According to Oakland Public Works, the latest figures from April 2023 to March 2024 showed that only 570 citations were issued for illegal dumping. Surveillance cameras were installed in 2022, but have their challenges. Public Works found that up to 50% of dumpers with license plates caught on camera could not be identified.
"But unless you enforce the rules and the laws that we have, there are some individuals that will continue to break the law," Gallo said.
