Weiss

—When a person challenges a parking citation, the Vehicle Code provides three potential levels of review: initial review, administrative hearing, and de novo appeal to the superior court. (Veh. Code, §§ 40215, subds. (a)-(c), 40230, subds. (a), (d).) As to the initial review, section 40215, subdivision (a) provides, in substance, that the request for initial review is made to “the issuing agency,” that the “issuing agency shall cancel” the citation if certain specified circumstances are satisfied, and that “[t]he issuing agency shall advise the processing agency, if any, of the cancellation.”

In this appeal by the City of Los Angeles (City) and Xerox Business Services, LLC (Xerox) from the trial court’s grant of petitioner Cody Weiss’s petition for a writ of mandate, we consider whether the City, as the “issuing agency” for notice of parking violations in the City (see § 40202), must conduct the “initial review” of challenged citations (§ 40215, subd. (a)), or whether it may delegate that duty to Xerox, its “processing agency” (§ 40200.6, subd. (a)) with which it contracts “for the processing of notices of parking violations” (§ 40200.5, subd. (a)). Based on the language…