- Wilmington is turning over parking ticket appeals to the state Justice of the Peace Court starting Monday, Aug. 14, 2023.
- Wilmington will no longer weigh in on drivers’ parking appeals, opting for the courts to determine appeal outcome.
- Wilmington officials say change will ensure appeals go directly to the court and will reduce strains on city staff.
Wilmington is turning over parking ticket appeals to Delaware’s Justice of the Peace Court, ending the city’s decades-old administrative process that has been riddled with issues for years.
Starting Monday, Aug. 14, drivers wishing to appeal parking tickets in Wilmington can submit those requests directly to the Justice of the Peace Court online or through the mail.
Delaware’s largest city in recent years has been plagued by complaints regarding its parking enforcement and towing practices.
While a federal civil rights lawsuit filed in September 2021 alleges constitutional violations with Wilmington allowing companies to tow cars, scrap or sell them and keep the proceeds, the ticket appeals process has also been riddled with issues.
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Wilmington Mayor Mike Purzycki said that moving the appeals process to “court is a fair process for constituents and less taxing on city staff.”
“We have taken many steps over the past year to provide a better parking enforcement system, and now we’ll continue that effort by having all appeals go directly to the court,” Purzycki said in a news release. “This is a change for the better for both constituents and city government.”
How to file an appeal with the new process
The city will no longer weigh in on parking ticket appeals, said Purzycki’s deputy chief of staff John Rago.
Parking advocate and public affairs professional Ken Grant, who has doggedly pursued parking reforms in Wilmington for years, celebrated the announced change, noting that it was a recommendation made back in 2019 when AAA Mid-Atlantic developed a report on Wilmington parking enforcement.
“Now we’ve got a process set up that allows those appeals to be heard in an open court and everything is on the record, as it should be,” he said. “People will not be left wondering and assuming everything is fine until they go to the DMV to register their vehicle.”
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Drivers wishing to appeal a parking ticket can complete an online form found on the city’s website. That request will be sent by Wilmington officials to the Justice of the Peace Court. The court will then schedule a hearing date, and notify the driver.
You can also file a parking ticket appeal by:
- Mailing appeal to the City of Wilmington, P.O. Box 2308, Wilmington, DE 19899.
- Or dropping off a written appeal at the first-floor Department of Finance Customer Service Office at the Redding City/County Building at 800 N. French St. in Wilmington.
Why is the appeal process changing?
Back in the ’90s, the city had its own municipal court.
Shortly after the former Wilmington Municipal Court was transferred to the state in 1998, the city created its own administrative process for handling appeals.
That’s the process that most know today – whereby you first appeal a ticket to the city and if you disagree with that outcome, a driver can request the Justice of the Peace Court to weigh in.
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In recent years, appeals heard in court have been sporadic. While every third Friday of the month is reserved in JP Court for Wilmington parking appeals, there have been only a handful of hearings held in JP Court No. 20 in the past three years. Hearings were held in January and February of 2020, according to court records, but another hearing wouldn’t be held until July 2021.
City officials have blamed the pandemic along with staffing challenges for the delays.
A Delaware Online/The News Journal analysis of appeals shows that the percentage sent to court has dropped by more than half in the last decade, from an average of 3.9% sent to JP Court from 2012-15 to 1.2% from 2016-21.
The last court hearing was held in July last year, marking over a year since city officials sent any appeals to JP Court.
City officials said at the time that they were working with DELJIS and court officials to revise the appeals process so that requests are delivered directly to the court.
Rago said the city also dismissed 495 parking tickets that people had appealed because “we felt that we hadn’t handled any of their concerns in a timely manner,” refunding drivers who paid fines and fees a total of $15,700.
The Wilmington Fines and Fees Justice Team applauded the change that will ensure drivers have “access to their due process rights.”
“By taking the appeals process out of the ‘closed box’ system and putting it into an open, constitutional court, we expect to hear fewer complaints from the people of Wilmington,” the statement reads.
Got a tip? Contact Amanda Fries at afries@delawareonline.com, or by calling or texting 302-598-5507. Follow her on X (aka Twitter) at @mandy_fries.
