by @BarryRafkind in Public Records / FOIA Requests, Special, Traffic & Parking
Posted on August 26, 2009 at 9:51 am
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In preparation for the parking tickets story, I have submitted the following request for public records to the City:
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to Jaclyn Rossetti <JRossetti(at)somervillema.gov>
cc Thomas Champion <TChampion(at)somervillema.gov>
date Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 10:00 AM
subject Public Records Request : Car Towing Information
Dear Public Information Officer Jackie Rossetti, (cc Thomas Champion, Exec Dir of Communications)
In the public interest and per MA public records law M.G.L. Chapter 66: Section 10, which states that
“A custodian of a public record shall, within ten days following receipt of a request for inspection or copy of a public record, comply with such request.”
( Today being Aug 25, the tenth calendar day afterwards appears to be Sep 4 )
Please provide, in electronic tabular format, records of car towing from the City of Somerville dating back as far as Jan 1, 2000 or as early as your records were kept if they do not go back that far.
This request specifically excludes any personally identifying information (such as name, home address, phone, license plate #), so that no redaction reviews are anticipated. If redaction reviews are deemed necessary, please notify me of that necessity promptly with an indication about which fields would need to be reviewed.
Acceptable electronic formats would be either Excel spreadsheet or a delimited text file such as CSV. I wish to receive this data through email or a linked file on a server that can be downloaded. The file(s) may be in a compressed format for faster transmission.
In addition, I request a copy of the city’s contract with its towing contractor.
This request is made in the public interest because towing affect residents across the city. For this reason, I ask that any fees be waived. If fees must still be charged, please seek permission from me before retrieving the data.
If any requested records are not available or not able to be retrieved within 10 days, please promptly provide the relevant explanations about such problems and proposed remedies before day ten.
Your earliest acknowledgment of your receipt of this message and any estimate on progress will be greatly appreciated!
Thank you very much for your help!
Sincerely,
Barry Rafkind
<street address>
Somerville, MA 02144
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Excellent! Just read the Boston Globe article, I’ve been wondering about these schemes myself, although I live in East Cambridge just over the line, all these cities/towns are the same in terms of government corruption. So, Pat’s Towing, what’s up with them? Gun in the top drawer, cash only business? Exclusive contracts? Police lookouts at Twin City Mall and beyond? Glad to see someone’s taking this on since the “mainstream” media hasn’t. I’ve subscribed to your blog, very interesting work you’re doing. Looking forward to more.
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Thanks for your supportive words, Karen. I’ve also submitted my requests for parking/towing data to Cambridge, but have only been told so far that my requests were forwarded on to the legal dept. I would encourage you and others to file your own requests and document them on a blog such as this one.
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Three years ago, here in Cambridge, I was ticketed for 3 days, because my car’s rear bumper touched over the crosswalk line about a half inch, not into the walkway mind you, just the white line.
Mind you, I lived in San Diego for a few years prior and was still basing the rules on theirs for no other reason than to believe that perhaps common sense might be common (you are only ticketed in SD if your tire is parked in the crosswalk, not your bumper). I requested online to the Cambridge City Hall not to dispute the ticket but asked where I could find the rules for parking in Cambridge because I could not find them anywhere on their “state of the art” website.
I subsequently received a letter stating my “dispute” was denied. Dispute? What dispute, I didn’t even get there yet, just wanted to know what the rules were. This was clearly a stock letter. So corrupt.
Anyway, I am ashamed to say I did not follow up because I have been fighting corruption for so long, at that point, I was burned out and just didn’t.
I will, however, make an attempt to request parking/towing data and will document the results.
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Well, at least it looks like Cambridge now publishes its parking rules online. I look forward to hearing if you make any more progress with your records requests than I did with mine.
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Karen, get used to it. The more “progressive” the area the more corruption. No one is surpised anymore when we see it – we’ve all gotten so beaten down by their games for more revenue that after each new transgression we just scream “May I have another!”
This city/state is giving NJ and IL a run for their money for most corrupt.
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Xumi, I agree. What frustrates me most is how little people do about these issues, other than complain. It’s very difficult to fight when you’re fighting alone. Our societies are so fragmented now, by design, so few people work together to change it. Yes, politicians and others in power are corrupt, but only we are to blame because we do nothing about it.
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Thank you for the link, Barry. This happened a few years ago and I do believe I found that link then but because it wasn’t clear what constitutes “creat(ing) a safety hazard for pedestrians causing them to walk in the street or near moving traffic to cross the street or get to the sidewalk, because they way I parked absolutely did not. Fact is, we can’t leave it up to meter persons to use that kind of expertise in determining a violation because they are clearly tools sent out to bring in revenue by ticketing as many people as possible. My significant other read in the library recently that Cambridge brought in $9 million in tickets last year, up $1 million from the previous year. There’s definitely a major push to do more now that the economy is bad, so everyone really should try to do everything by the book, erring on the side of extreme no matter how silly it may be. We are living among vultures who will take full advantage of you when you’re down.
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