If all East Palo Alto residents do nothing, then abandoned vehicles and oversized vehicles will literally not be enforced by the police department, which reduces available on-street parking for residents.

As a Public Works & Transportation commissioner for the past 3 years, I have observed an increasing rate of meeting topics related to parking. New development and state policies (e.g. Daylighting Law) also trend towards a double whammy of increased parking demand and decreased on-street parking supply. If we do nothing to effectively manage on-street parking, East Palo Alto will hinder its ability to develop new housing and facilities for its current and future residents.

Our police department has a non-proactive policy for abandoned vehicles and oversized vehicles; they require East Palo Alto residents to report parking violations. This means that if all East Palo Alto residents do nothing, then abandoned vehicles and oversized vehicles will literally not be enforced, reducing available on-street parking for residents.

I wrote this blog post to share information on how to report the 3 most common categories of parking violations in East Palo Alto: abandoned vehicles, oversized vehicles, and no parking violations.

Abandoned Vehicles

Chapter 10.04.120 of East Palo Alto's municipal code states that:

It is unlawful for any person who owns or has possession, custody, or control of any vehicle, including a boat or trailer, to park or leave such vehicle upon any street, alley, highway, publicly-owned or publicly-leased parking lot, or under vehicular jurisdiction of the City of East Palo Alto for more than a consecutive period of seventy-two (72) hours. Any such vehicle parked or left for such period shall be deemed to have been abandoned by the registered owner. To comply with this section, vehicles must be moved at least one thousand (1,000) feet (approximately two-tenths ( 2/10 ) of a mile).

Here is what you can do as a resident if you observe a vehicle that has not been moved for 72 hours:

1. Leave a voicemail to East Palo Alto's parking hotline as described on the Parking Complaints webpage. For a more urgent complaint, you can call the police department's non-emergency phone number listed here which routes to the county's dispatch center.
2. A police department officer – most likely a Community Service Officer (CSO) – will affix a Notice to Tow red slip onto the vehicle's driver side window (Fig 1).
3. If after 72 hours the vehicle is still parked in the same spot or within 1,000 feet of the original spot, the officer will have the vehicle towed.

In January 2025, I did a ride-along with the police department and I observed these exact steps followed. More information can be found at the end of the January Public Works & Transportation Commission meeting recording where I gave a verbal update on my learnings from the ride-along.

Police Chief Jeff Liu has stated publicly at city meetings and on the Parking Complaints website that the police department currently does not proactively enforce abandoned vehicles. That is why if your street is out of parking spaces and there are abandoned vehicles taking up spaces that would otherwise go to vehicles that would get used, you will need to submit a report to the police. I have confirmed with officers that your information stays confidential and will not be made available, so you can be assured of no retaliation.

Oversized Vehicles

Chapter 10.04.130 of the Municipal Code states that:

It is unlawful for any person, firm or corporation to park, or cause to be parked, an oversized vehicle or trailer unconnected to a motor vehicle on any public street or road under jurisdiction of the City of East Palo Alto between the hours of 2:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. ... Any member of the police department authorized by the chief of police may remove, or cause to be removed, a vehicle in violation of the parking restriction from the street in the manner and subject to the requirements of Section 22650 et seq., of the California Vehicle Code and subject to the provisions of this section.

where an oversized vehicle is defined in chapter 10.04.20 as:

a vehicle that exceeds in any of the following dimensions: seven feet or eighty-four (84) inches in width, eight feet or ninety-six (96) inches in height, or twenty-three (23) feet or 276 inches in length.

For comparison, a Ford F-150 pick-up truck is 17.4 feet long (source) and a Cybertruck is 18.5 feet long (source). So an oversized vehicle would be something that is around 1/3 longer than a pick-up truck. An RV or truck with more than 4 tires (e.g. 2 tires in front, 4 tires in one line in the back) is likely to be oversized. To my understanding, the City's police department is not currently proactively enforcing oversized vehicles. Even though determining whether a vehicle is oversized is a very objective measurement (e.g. simply measuring the vehicle), there have been concerns in the past from vehicle owners of being potentially singled-out/targeted by the police department. That is why the police department wants residents to report issues.

Here is what you can do if you observe an oversized vehicle parked overnight on city streets:

1. Report the oversized vehicle by following instructions on East Palo Alto's Parking Complaints webpage.
2. A police department officer will place a Notice to Tow on the vehicle with a 72 hour notice.
3. If the vehicle remains after 72 hours, it will be towed.

I have noticed that Notice to Tow notice used by the police department may give mixed messaging as it is intended for abandoned vehicles. The 1,000 foot notice should not apply here since oversized vehicles are not allowed on any city street.

I also wanted to call out that trailers unconnected to a motor vehicle are prohibited overnight between 2am - 5am. There have been many examples of unconnected trailers on East Palo Alto streets.

No Parking Violations

Unlike the reactive approach for abandoned vehicles and oversized vehicles, enforcement of red curbs and street sweeping is proactive and is revenue generating for the City.

Here is what you can do if you observe a vehicle parked in a curb painted red, in an area with posted no parking signs, within 15 feet of a fire hydrant, or during street sweeping hours:

1. Report by following instructions on East Palo Alto's Parking Complaints webpage. If you need a more timely response, you can call the police department's non-emergency phone number listed here which routes to the county's dispatch center.
2. Dispatch would then send the request to CSOs and it would appear on their in-car monitor.
3. CSOs or police officers would give a ticket to the car. I believe that the ticket is currently around $36.

In January 2025, the police department started posting parking enforcement statistics. In the fiscal year from July 2023 to June 2024 there were 10,488 parking citations issued (source, Fig 2), of which 64% were for parking in a street sweeping zone.

This roughly twofold increase in total parking citations compared to the 5,019 parking citations in fiscal year 2022-2023 aligns with the increase in community service officers to three today.

Summary of Enforcement Policies

The table below summarizes the types of parking violations in the city. I believe that enforcing the first 2 parking violations - abandoned vehicles and oversized vehicles - is the most effective way to increasing the supply of on-street parking for East Palo Alto residents. Did you know that there is evidence that many abandoned and oversized vehicles parked overnight in East Palo Alto do not even belong to East Palo Alto residents?

Enforcement Challenges

Enforcing abandoned vehicle violations is highly resource-intensive and involves multiple challenges. First, an EPA resident has to pay attention to the cars on their street to notice that a car has not been used. Second, the resident needs to know how to report the issue. Third, a CSO needs to visit the car and tape on a 72 hour notice to tow. Fourth, the CSO needs to happen to drive past the car 72 hours later, read the small text on the notice to tow violation, and call the towing company. Fifth, the CSO needs to stay with the car for the duration of the tow (1 hour minimum according to a CSO) since they are the one authorizing the tow. Additionally, no other issues can enter the CSO's dispatch queue during the tow; another commissioner who did a ride along observed that the CSO had to cancel an abandoned vehicle tow midway because a higher priority issue came up. Lastly, the city gets no money from enforcing this since towing abandoned vehicles is not revenue generating. There are other responsibilities that CSO could have addressed during that time, such as assisting with car accidents on the roads in EPA, registering sex offenders, and handling missing persons.

The enforcement for oversized vehicles is also challenging because it follows a similar 72 hour notice to tow process as for abandoned vehicles. The fact that the municipal code restricts oversized vehicles only between 2am - 5am, coupled with the fact that there are no CSOs currently enforcing overnight (only police officers), makes it difficult to proactively enforce oversized vehicles. On top of this, imagine how difficult it would be to accurately determine if a vehicle is oversized in the dark! If I was an officer, I don't think I would be able to objectively measure out there with a measuring tape at 2am.

Conclusion

In this blog post, I have shared actionable steps you can take to report abandoned vehicles, oversized vehicles, or vehicles parked in a no parking zone. While this helps to manage the vehicles on our city streets, this process is very resource intensive and relies on the help of many residents. We need a more automated way of enforcement that does not rely on residents' time. One potential solution is the proposed residential parking permit program, which will be the subject of an upcoming blog post.