At their meeting on Monday, the Los Alamitos City Council approved new fines for parking violations in the city and authorized a new two hour restricted parking zone on Katella near Los Alamitos Medical Center.

Local business owners on Katella near Cherry complained that cars parked in front of their business all day, make it harder for their customers to find easy street parking. The city reported "Mr. Gerald Bertram, property and business owner, at 3700 Katella Avenue, as well as several neighboring businesses are requesting the City install 2-hour time limit parking on the south side of Katella Avenue east and west of Cherry Street, to provide patron parking currently being lost due to long term parking users."

Business owners who testified at the City Council meeting said that the people who leave their cars on Katella all day wear hospital scrubs and appear to work in the hospital or the other medical businesses located on the hospital campus. The speakers suggested there is less than the desirable amount of street parking available in front of the Katella businesses for the short term parking needs of their patrons.

No one testified against the parking restriction and there was no conclusive determination of who the offending "long term parking users" are, or what their needs might be. According to Susan Morales, Marketing and Communications Director for the Los Alamitos Medical Center, the hospital was not notified about the parking resolution.

Morales said hospital executives had a discussion with City officials about a month ago regarding the hospital's long term parking plans, but she "was not aware" of the two hour limit imposed by the City Council. She said hospital executives requested the city to provide the license numbers of the "long term parking users", but the city did not respond.

Morales explained "We offer free valet service for them {any employees on the hospital's campus, even if not employees of the Los Alamitos Medical Center} so they can come any time of day, park their car, jump out, run into their building...they're not even our employees and we offer that for them for their convenience."

Whoever the long term parkers are, they will find signs restricting their favorite parking spots to two hours as soon as the city posts the signs. And, the fines just went up.

In addition to the Katella parking restriction, the City Council approved a new fine schedule for parking violations. The highest fines are for handicap related violations and they all do not need to be marked with handicap signs. If you park in a marked handicap spot, without the handicap license plate or placard, it will now cost you $350, up from $275 in the previous fine schedule. But, watch out for those places "In front of or upon that portion of a curb that has been cut down, lowered, or constructed to provide wheelchair accessibility to the sidewalk." This one will set you back $250 and note that it does not require a sign or red curb.

Drivers also need to be mindful of marked parking restrictions near those handicap access ramps. This one gets the award for the largest fine increase--from $34 to $250. It is California Vehicle Code 22522, which reads "No person shall park a vehicle within three feet of any sidewalk access ramp constructed at, or adjacent to, a crosswalk or at any other location on a sidewalk so as to be accessible to and usable by the physically disabled, if the area adjoining the ramp is designated by either a sign or red paint." At least for this one, it must be marked.

If you park in a fire lane, it will cost you $105, up from $56 in the old schedule. Most of the other fines were increased from $34 to $40.