I have to say I’m tempted. Here’s the story. A particular residential street in Pasadena has been covered with parking tickets because it has a ‘two hour’ limit on parking. According to the city, the limit has been there for 40 years or more. The city writes hundreds of tickets, and the residents complain.
Finally one resident took it upon himself to ask the city why there was a two hour limit. The answer was basically “We don’t know.” He was told he needed a petition to change the rule. That took one weekend. The rule was changed and the signs came down a week later.
And you wonder why parking has such a bad rep. If the city notices (well that’s the first problem) that a inordinate number of citations are being written in a certain area, wouldn’t it be a good idea to take a look and find out why? Maybe there is a good reason. Maybe the residents want the citations to move along interlopers. Maybe the neighborhood is near a school or hospital and…well you know.
Rather that take a look, the city simply soldiered on, writing tickets and collecting money. The regulations were doing nothing to assist in protecting the parking asset, was doing nothing to help the people in the neighborhood, was doing nothing except ticking off the residents in the area and generating big bucks for the city (At $50 a pop).
OK, maybe this is small potatoes for a big time award like the Baghdad by the Bay, the city of the Rose Parade may deserve an honorable mention.
What does it take to review where tickets are written and why? My guess is that you could call a meeting of your enforcement staff and in 10 minutes you could have a list of areas to review and be able to make some friends in the citizenry.
JVH
