PERMISSIBLE USES OF THE PARKING METER FUND

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Opinion No. 74-21 Page Two in California is that the funds may not be used for purposes other than traffic regulation with the qualification that it might be possibly legal for a city to establ~isi~ a parking meter tax provided certain constitutional limitations can be overcome. • ANALYSIS As this office has been informed, there presently exists $300,000 in the parking meter fund established by S.A.M.C. Section 36-406. Section 36-406 reads as follows: "All money deposited in said parking meters shall be deposited in a special fund, to be known as the 'parking meter fund' and shall be used exclusively for the purchase, installation, main- tenance, repair, servicing and policing of said parking meters and pavement markings in the traffic zones wherein parking is regulated or controlled by parking meters for the proper regulation of traffic, the elimination of traffic violations upon the public streets of the City, for the elimination of traffic hazards, the realignment, improvement and widening of streets to expedite orderly traffic movement, the purchase, installation, and maintenance of mechanical traffic-control devices, and the purchase or lease and operation of land for off-street parking within the City, or any of them, as the Council may determine." As S.A.M.C. Section 36-406 is presently worded, the monies in said fund may therefore not be loaned to the Community Redevelopment Agency. As was previously mentioned in our memo- randum to you of June 27, 1974, it would be possible to use parking meter fund monies for the Civic Center Drive East project and thereafter allow these monies to be repaid to the City by .the Community Redevelopment Agency through the cooperation agreement for reimbursement of these monies entered into between the Commun- ity Redevelopment Agency and the City. If, however, the Civic Center Drive East project is being funded by gas tax monies, it appears it would be unfeasible to use this method. -60-