La Crosse parking-boot plan will likely nab just a few cars at a time

La Crosse parking enforcement won’t collect all the overdue parking tickets at once.

The city will, in a couple of weeks, begin booting and towing cars that have multiple parking tickets that haven’t been paid.

Parking utility coordinator Jim Flottmeyer expects they might wind up booting just one or two per day of the 600-plus that have back tickets, though they have just three boots to use at this point.

But, he’d prefer that owners of those cars come in and pay up before that happens.

“We’re trying to help people. We don’t want to boot people. We just want the money,” Flottmeyer said. “We want to get them off this list because they owe the City of La Crosse money. That’s what we’re trying to do here.”

Rules adopted this summer by the city gives the parking utility the ability to immobilize and sell a car at auction to pay back parking tickets. The city is owed about $343,000 in those back tickets.

Cars could get booted and towed for those who have five or more unpaid parking tickets that are 60 or more days past due.

Enforcement will begin Nov. 15.