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Do you have unpaid parking tickets in Knoxville? The city is putting top offenders on a tow list if they don't pay.

Municipal Court Judge Tyler Caviness says he and the mayor's office have taken the first step in collecting tickets that haven't been paid in years.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The Knoxville Municipal Court and Mayor Indya Kincannon's office are working to collect millions of dollars owed to the city in unpaid downtown and Fort Sanders parking tickets.

Earlier this summer, 10Investigates found that over $4.5 million were owed to the city in more than 400,000 unpaid parking tickets, dating back over ten years.

The municipal court collects the money for these tickets, and newly-elected Judge Tyler Caviness said he is tackling the issue head-on.

His office sent nearly 100 letters this month to the city's top offenders. Some of them have racked up over $10,000 in parking fines. 

The majority of people only owe a small amount.

“What we saw was that the majority of people just had a few parking tickets, less than a hundred dollars of parking tickets," Caviness said. "It's just that there was a really large number of people with a lower number of tickets.”

Since the first week of October, about 50 of the 100 people who received letters have contacted the court to either pay their balance or set up a payment plan.

“We didn’t want to just start towing cars out of the blue. We want people to have the opportunity to come in and take accountability for this because they have still been continuing to receive parking tickets," Caviness said. "It's not as if this is a surprise.”

The court is willing to work with people and is looking at balances on a case-by-case basis. Judge Caviness said he gave a college student the option to pay just 10% of her balance if they also completed 80 hours of community service at a local nonprofit.

If you received a letter but haven't reached out to the court by Monday, you will be placed on a tow list with Knoxville Police.

This means your car could be towed if it is seen parked on a public street.

The court intends to send these letters out to people with more than two outstanding parking tickets, Caviness said. 

If you haven't received a letter yet, but know you have an unpaid balance, you can call the municipal court administrator at 865-215-7474

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