BEND, OR -- Bend Police want to manage community expectations for responding to the top reason people call the agency: parking complaints. "This cannot be our highest priority," Bend PD's Sheila Miller tells KBND News, "Our officers get called to hundreds of calls every day, and those things are often emergencies or crimes in progress, or something that’s really dangerous."

Miller says, "We’ve already received about 2500 calls for abandoned vehicles, so far in 2023. And then if you combine that with parking complaints, which is about 1500, we’re at over 4,000 calls for service on those two issues." And the complaints run the gamut, from nuisance vehicles, to cars parked illegally or just parked too long in one location. She says there are 10 Community Service officers who respond to abandoned vehicles, when they have time, "Vehicles have just been left by the side of the road, right? Somebody broke down, maybe they’ll come back for it, maybe they won’t. And those can be fairly straightforward." She says the rest get triaged, "If it’s a hazard, if it’s putting people in danger, if it’s a safety issue, we’re going to respond to those much more quickly than we are to, ‘this guy parks his junker in front of my house and I don’t care for it’." 

Under the city’s parking ordinance, Miller says cars only have to move every three days, "So, I can park my car in your neighborhood, I can park it in my neighborhood, I can park it anywhere I want. And as long as I move it every three days - and in our city parking ordinance, it does not identify how far I have to move it. I just have to move it."

Parking complaints should be reported through non-emergency dispatch, at 541-693-6911.

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