If you have five or more outstanding parking tickets in the city of Logan you might get the boot if you don't pay up.

Recently, the City of Logan held a first reading on an adopted ordinance for vehicle impoundment and immobilization.

Police Chief E.K. Harper said anybody who has five or more unpaid fines may find their car, truck or van has been immobilized by a device called the boot locked on a wheel, or even towed away. At that point, violators will have to face the Municipal Judge and ask for a hearing.

Mayor Serafino Nolletti said he had spoken with Chief Harper about the problem of people who hog parking in the city without paying the meters or the fines when ticketed. Councilman Greg Glick said the city already owned the boot device for many years but had not utilized it. City Attorney Kendall Partlow said the city had looked at ordinances other towns have to deal with the same problem and modeled theirs on Charleston.

"This has been a problem that past administrations also talked about, but we never did anything," Nolletti said.

Owners of vehicles that have been broken down and abandoned will be affected too after they get the proper number of citations their vehicles will be towed.

First reading of the Vehicle Impoundment and Immobilization ordinance was approved and a second reading is expected at the Sept. Logan City Council meeting.

For some weeks the city has had problems with broken water lines that were busted by contractors working on a Logan County PSD project, which has also damaged roads in the Aracoma and West Logan areas.

Mayor Nolletti told The Logan Banner that earlier this week, a vehicle was damaged when it struck a manhole cover near the 911 center. The irate owner of the vehicle had to have it towed as he lived out of the county and contacted city hall demanding the city pay for the damages.

"We told him that we didn't do it, as it was the PSD's project," Nolletti said. Chief Harper contacted the PSD and they said it was not their problem because the property had not been deeded over to them yet and therefore it was the contractor's fault. The damages were estimated at $1,000."

In other city news:

* The purchase of a new Toyota Tundra truck for the fire department was delayed. Mayor Nolletti said the city would wait until the next regular council meeting in a few weeks to discuss going further.