SOAP LAKE - Commercial truckers face new detours in Soap Lake, which restricted in-city driving and banned big rig parking on residential streets.

The Soap Lake City Council passed an ordinance prohibiting vehicles measuring longer than 125 feet or licensed to carry more than 12,000 pounds from driving on city streets, except when making home deliveries.

Other vehicles exempted from the new rule include RVs, municipal utility trucks, mail trucks and transit authority or school buses.

City attorney Katherine Kenison, who drafted the ordinance, said similar rules have been imposed by other area cities in response to a variety of nuisance complaints, such as truck noise or inconvenience caused by truck owners who park their vehicles in the street while working on them.

"One of the biggest issues is the deterioration of residential streets," she added. "They're not designed to withstand that kind of truck traffic."

Council designated state Route 17, known as Daisy Street within city limits, as Soap Lake's sole truck route, and kicked around several ideas for the penalty amount to be levied in the event of an infraction - from $85 up to $510.

"If it's too low, they're not going to answer the door and they don't care," warned Police Chief Jim Dorris.

He was reminded by Kenison and Councilman De Black that the higher the fee, the less likely it is the city will collect.

"Chief, the problem is you put it at $510, I'd love to, but they're going to fight it," Kenison said. "Then you're going to have to be in court to testify every single time."

Council settled on $135 for a first offense,  $260 for second offenses and $510 for all third and subsequent offenses within 12 months.

Dorris said he plans to ramp up to full enforcement of the ordinance and will meanwhile instruct patrol officers to educate truck drivers and give verbal warnings to first time offenders.

If the city starts getting push back from the trucking community, Kenison said council can inform drivers and their employers they have the option of pooling resources for a shared truck parking lot near town.

The city can always tweak the ordinance if certain sections are found to be untenable, she added.