Council accepts audit of how San Jose handles abandoned-car complaints
About 10,000 cases in nine months. The mayor wants results by council district and tracking of repeat license plates.
The San Jose City Council on Oct. 27 unanimously accepted a City Auditor's report on how the city handles complaints about abandoned or long-parked cars, according to the meeting video. The report, No. 26-06, made three findings about the Parking Compliance Unit, the city team that checks reported vehicles and can tag or tow them.
The unit's budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year is $17.4 million. Eight of the city's 55.5 parking and traffic officer jobs work on abandoned vehicles.
The city handled about 10,000 cases from July 2025 to March 2026, according to a memo from Mayor Matt Mahan and four council members. Cases took about six days to close on average, and in about 80% the owner moved the car.
The memo asks staff to publish results by council district, track repeat cases by license plate and consider enforcing the rule that parked cars move at least two-tenths of a mile every 72 hours. It asks for a report to a council committee in April 2027. Official minutes, which will show whether the council adopted the memo's requests, were still in draft Friday.
Source: City Auditor Report 26-06; Mayor's memo, Oct. 23; council meeting video, Item 3.3