Some burglar alarm owners in Palo Alto are complaining that they’ve been robbed — not by criminals, but by a bureaucracy that imposes $250 fines for late renewals of burglar alarm permits.
Art Sklaroff is one of more than a dozen residents who showed up for an administrative hearing earlier this month to contest the fine, which he said came without warning. Like the others, he explained that he had been renewing his mandatory $35 permit each year, but forgot this year because he didn’t receive the city’s usual courtesy reminder.
Like each of the others, he was told that it was no excuse. The rules are the rules.
It’s a stance city officials defended Monday, saying they’re just carrying out a policy laid down by the city council years ago. That’s not good enough for some frustrated residents, who described the process as heavy-handed and said they felt like the city was profiting from their misfortune. A few are planning to go to the council Monday and ask for a refund.
“It’s really an outrageous fee,” Sklaroff said, noting that it was more than seven times the cost of the permit itself. The renewal, he added, is “a once-a-year kind of thing. It’s not something that’s on top of our mind.”
Janice Hall, the city’s alarm compliance officer, responded that she sends out reminders to each of the city’s 3,700 alarm owners every year, and only a few dozen claim not to have received them.
“I can’t control what happens with the mail,” she said. “I can’t say they did get it and ignored it, I can’t say they didn’t get it, but they are mailed, absolutely. I personally do them myself.”
Louis Amadeo, the administrative hearing officer who rejected the residents’ appeals, said he, too, is operating by the book. The city isn’t legally required to send courtesy notices.
And even if they were, he said, “How do I know it’s true that they didn’t get the letter? It’s easy to say. But in the code, a letter that is mailed is assumed to be delivered.”
As for the amount of the fine, Amadeo added, that’s an issue for the policy makers. His duty is to apply the law, not tinker with it.
City records show that the fines were established by a unanimous vote of the council in November 2001 in an effort to crack down on people who operated alarms without registering them. Then-police chief Pat Dwyer said 98 percent of all burglar alarms were false, and police needed a way to keep track of the owners so they could recoup some of the costs of responding to them.
Owners are not fined for the first two false alarms in a given year, but must pay $100 for the third, $150 for the fourth and $200 for the fifth. After seven, police may simply stop responding.
In one important respect, the policy has worked, said Charles Cullen, the police department’s technical services director. False alarms have dropped about 25 percent in the eight years since the permit system began.
William Neidig, another alarm owner recently docked $250, agreed it’s reasonable to charge people for false alarms. But he said he’s never had one — and until this year, he’s never missed a permit payment either.
“Every year, they send a letter, and we send them $35, just like the utility bill,” Neidig said. “This year we didn’t receive a letter, we didn’t send $35, and then the first indication we got was a $250 fine.”
Neidig said he also objected to the hearing process, which reminded him of a “show trial” because the residents didn’t realize they had no chance of winning. And with 15 people being fined $250 each, the city collected about $3,750.
“If their goal was just to register people and collect the $35, they could have done it differently,” he contended.
Cullen, who only recently took over the program, agreed some changes might be in order. He said the department has considered sending out second warnings to late renewers, but at the moment it doesn’t have the additional resources.
“If I missed paying $35 originally and ended up having to pay $250, it would probably upset me too,” he said. “That being said, if you get a traffic ticket, you’re not usually happy with the fine as well.”
In Mountain View, residents must also register their burglar alarms, but there is no formal process for dealing with those who pay late, officials there said. Instead, the police department typically sends its volunteers to people’s homes or businesses to find out why they haven’t paid.
That approach has worked well in the past, said Liz Wylie, who runs the program. Recently, however, it has seen its first scofflaws who have refused to pay even after being hounded. The economy may be a factor, Wylie said.
Ironically, that problem now has Mountain View eyeing a tougher approach — perhaps one more like Palo Alto’s.
E-mail Will Oremus at woremus@dailynewsgroup.com.
