$7300 parking fee at Lindbergh Field (keeps mounting)

Visiting the San Diego airport on March 23, I parked next to a black Ford Ranger pickup truck at the Terminal 1 parking lot. The truck, dirty and weathered from the bay’s moist air and with a damaged front end and expired registration, has been sitting in the airport parking space for the past nine months.

A time-stamped parking stub, dated June 22, 2015, at 19:30 hours, was visible through the windshield. The truck’s doors were unlocked. The San Diego Harbor Police had issued a now-curled-up and faded ticket for expired registration sometime after the truck’s registration lapsed last September — a $37.50 fine, according to California Vehicle Code section 5204(a).

Back in March, Sgt. Woodward of the San Diego Harbor Police confirmed that the license-plate number indeed belonged to a black, 2000 Ford Ranger, and it had not been reported as stolen. Woodward explained that his officer would have run the plate while writing the ticket. “If it isn’t reported stolen or doesn't pose a threat, that where our jurisdiction ends,” said Woodward.

On April 9, I happened to be parking in the same section again. The truck was still there.

According to Woodward, it’s up to the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority, which owns the parking lot, and the airport’s parking contractor, ACE Parking, to get involved in removing a vehicle or search for its owner.

Rebecca Bloomfield, spokesperson for the airport authority, said on April 12 that it was up to ACE Parking to notify the airport of any vehicles left for over 60 days. “We have discussed this matter with ACE, and steps are being taken to ensure timely reporting of such vehicles,” she wrote in an email.

ACE Parking’s Mike DeGraffenreid, head of airport parking, said the truck, “obviously slipped through the cracks. It is embarrassing.”

DeGraffenreid said the parking company patrols their 9000 parking spaces daily, using a license-plate scanning system. The stored information should have reported the truck as unmoved after 60 days. “We’ve been having problems with that system for the last six months,” he said.

In the past year, nine other vehicles have been abandoned at the airport. None were stolen. DeGraffenreid believes most are delinquent on their payments and want the finance company to have to search for their vehicles. Another potential scenario is that someone dies while gone and the family has no idea where the vehicle is; and sometimes people are actually gone for that period of time.

If the owner of this truck returns, at $24 a day to park in the airport lot (went up April 1 to $30/day), his parking fees would amount to around $7300.

However the airport authority’s policy is to send a certified letter to the last registered owner (in this case, listed as living in Temecula) and he will be offered a hearing to present his case and perhaps reduce the parking fees.