Clarksville Police will no longer tow vehicles for parking violations, despite $500K in unpaid fines

In a recent City of Clarksville Parking Commission meeting, it was revealed that the Clarksville Police Police Department is now refusing tow requests from the city’s parking enforcement officers. This, combined with the city’s fear to take on the liability for booting illegally parked vehicles, will continue to add to the over $500,000 of unpaid fines, and lack of downtown parking availability, as people know they can park all day without paying the meter, without any penalty or enforcement. The city currently has no viable way to collect unpaid tickets or enforce the laws on vehicles. The city has stopped projecting unpaid fines as potential revenue until it’s collected since so little of it is ever paid.

Michael Palmore states the city of Clarksville has $500,000 in unpaid parking tickets and fines and is without any enforcement mechanism. Palmore, who was previously with Premier Parking but is now a city employee, was in favor of using boots to immobilize vehicles with unpaid tickets, however, there hasn’t been any appetite for it from the city council or officials.

Though rarely used, the parking enforcement officers have previously called upon the Clarksville Police Department to town vehicles for extreme or persistent violations. After some recent social media coverage of their tows, the department has since declined to tow any more vehicles at the request of the parking officers, stating they dealt with “backlash” on the most recent incident.

With a half-million dollars in unpaid fines, no way to collect them, and no way to tow vehicles that violate, it appears that parking in downtown Clarksville is now the wild-wild west, where there’s zero enforcement or penalty. Palmore, who comes from a private parking background, had gotten the city to raise rates on monthly parkers in the garages, and cancel all new discounts, without any notice to the public. Palmore has come across as abrasive and “all about the money” according to some city councilpersons who aren’t pleased with his perceived lack of “local values” in his short time working with Clarksville.