A garage manager who is paid over $100,000 a year, has been fined $16,000 for stealing $10,000 worth of parking from the city of Los Angeles. Seem he stored three vehicles in the garage he managed and didn’t pay the fee. According to the article listed on parknews.biz, he could have been fined as much as $33,000 but the ethics committee had mercy on him and halved the amount because he cooperated with the committee.
My only question, “Why does he still have a job?”
If this guy was playing fast an loose with one rule (can’t park more than one of your own cars in the garage, the one you drove to work) how many more rules is he ignoring. Has there been a full-fledged audit of this facility?
This is not unusual in our industry. I know of cases where tens of thousands of dollars have been stolen from a garage, and the manager was involved. However he was so well loved by the garage owner and the parkers, that the operator simply repaid the money lost and the manager kept his job.
How can we expect our employees to follow the rules, if the managers aren’t held to a high standard?
Don’t get me wrong. I know there are operators that would fire an employee in a New York minute if they were caught abusing their authority. And I know its very difficult to fire a public employee (don’t get me started on that) but please, this guy makes six figures, has a position of responsibility in a major facility in downtown Los Angeles, and is getting away with just a fine.
We cannot consider ourselves a profession until we stop this kind of abuse.
JVH
6 Responses
Very good point John, based on my consultancy experience in busy city centre parking lots with resident and business parking, the traditional Season Ticket access control systems used for decades can easily be abused, and allow users to have more than one vehicle at a time stored in the facility. It is only when more than one vehicle is required to be in use outside the facility at the same time, that the fraud sometimes comes to light, and even so more often than not is not detected as the attendant at the facility or remotely would mormally just open the gate believing the driver has forgotten their Season Ticket.
With Season Tickets costing a small fortune in big cities and so many parking lots now unmanned, it is more important than ever that the parking technology used to control Season Tickets is fit for purpose.
There are parking technologies that will completely eliminate the active and passive losses on parking lots and garages,
There are parking technologies that will completely eliminate the active and passive losses on parking lots and garages.
As a CPA-Inactive/Attorney who has been in parking for the most recent 12 years of my career, I am struggling to understand how the situation cited bears on parking being a profession. In the generally accepted as professions of public accounting and law, there are paths to redemption for those who fall short of the aspirational professional standards (fines, public mea culpas, suspensions, even disbarment with eventual reinstatement). I do not see how providing a path to redemption poses any threat to parking being viewed as a profession. Even professionals are humans.
Sorry I don’t buy it. This is a senior manager — he must set an example for his staff. If we allow managers to escape with a slap on the wrist, then why not allow stealing, or incompetence in tracking monthly parking, or such human traits as coming in late, leaving early, sloppy accounting procedures. Where does it end?
Good professional managers set examples for their staff and their company. This chap set a poor example. Your desire to be forgiving is super, but a lawyer or a doctor or yes, even a CPA, can be disbarred. Should not stealing parking from your employer be at least serious enough for one to lose their job? In this case, the offender wasn’t even required to repay the entire amount stolen.
JVH
In your column’s first line you state he was fined $16,000 for stealing $10,000 worth of parking. By most standards a $6,000 fine would be considered punishment. There is often a path to reinstatement for even a disbarred lawyer.