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GREENSBORO - Nobody likes parking tickets.

"It's been a continuous problem for Greensboro ," said Juanita Nall , a South Elm Street merchant. "People get mad if you write tickets. People get mad if you don't."

Enter Downtown Greensboro Inc. , the center city's development organization.

DGI plans to investigate the possibility of taking over the city's parking enforcement duties.

For DGI, ticket writing isn't about who's mad and who's not. It's an economic issue.

The city has more than 1,300 metered parking spaces, most of which are downtown. If those spaces don't become available on a regular basis, it's bad for business.

"It is all a service delivery problem," said Ed Wolverton , DGI's president and CEO . "If there is not good, convenient parking for customers, it makes it harder for our businesses to sustain themselves."

Downtown has plenty of people who abuse the system, either by plugging a meter all day or ignoring parking tickets.

A study two years ago found that 25 percent of those who used on-street parking violated the city's two-hour limit. And as of Aug. 31 , the city had about $2.2 million in unpaid parking fines.

"As far as I know, that is as high as it has ever been," Patti Koontz, the city's collections manager , said of the fines. "It is probably not increasing as fast (as it once did)."

The possibility that the city would privatize its ticket writing comes at a time of significant transition for those involved in the process.

* On July 1 , in a budget cutting move, the City Council reduced the number of ticket writers from six to four . Some say that's not enough staffing to ensure that parking spaces open up on a timely basis.

* Last spring, the council approved a plan to tow or "boot" flagrant parking violators. The city won't mount such an effort until late this year or early next year, police say, citing the need for new equipment and the technology to make the process work efficiently.

* The city also wants to create six to eight loading zones downtown in an effort to prevent big rigs from having to make deliveries from the middle of the street. Currently, such spaces are often occupied by cars and small trucks.

Police Sgt. G.M. Little , who supervises Greensboro's parking enforcement unit, says the city uses uniformed civilians - who don't have arrest powers - to write tickets.

Little says a number of North Carolina cities, including Winston-Salem , Charlotte , Raleigh and Wilmington , have already privatized their enforcement programs. He thinks such an effort could work here.

"It probably would be beneficial, not only to the city but to the police department," Little said. "They could put me back in the field."

But how such an effort might work in Greensboro hasn't been determined. "There are a lot of variables that we have to examine," Wolverton said. "We are just at the very beginning."

Wolverton said DGI should start its study before the end of the year, adding that it would take three to five months to complete. If the group recommends taking over parking enforcement, the move would require approval by the City Council.

"I'm not opposed or in favor because I don't have enough information," said Mayor Yvonne Johnson . "If it can save us money and free members of our police department that can do other things that we consider priorities, I am very willing to look at that seriously."

Contact Donald W. Patterson at 373-7027 or don.patterson@news-record.com