by @BarryRafkind in Government Reform, Investigative Reports, Public Records / FOIA Requests, Traffic & Parking
Posted on January 1, 2011 at 7:41 pm
Last Modified on January 10, 2011 at 8:44 pm
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When Watertown, MA resident Mark Pickering received a parking citation during a visit to a friend in nearby Somerville, he figured a simple letter to the Office of the Parking Clerk would result in a scheduled hearing or a ticket dismissal. Instead, he received an anonymous note of rejection with an extra $5 fine. [See Mark's letter in the SJ : Parking ticket appeal system needs work]
Such anecdotes are not uncommon in Somerville where parking enforcement has been compared to extortion. To find out if there are trends in which types of ticket appeals get dismissed or upheld, I filed a public records request with the City through MuckRock. The City is charging $226.50 for the records.
Please help cover the cost of this investigation on micro-funding site Spot.Us where you can donate directly or earn credit by filling out surveys with sponsors.
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I’ve made a small contribution.
The city’s parking enforcement makes a mockery of law enforcement. It’s utterly erratic, draconian in one case and unaccountably lax in another.
I live next door to a storm drain; it’s a few feet from my driveway, on a street that sometimes floods, so I maintain a lively interest in its condition at all times. Since mid-November, the same car has been parked over that storm drain. I’ve called Parking, the DPW, and eventually the sewer department, which responded that day and cleared a drain which was by that time covered with a large pile of frozen leaves and garbage. (I often clear the drain with garden tools, and an even older woman on the other side of the street clears hers, but this time I was just too indignant, and once the pile froze I wasn’t able to clear it.)
The Parking department issued a few tickets the first time I called, before Thanksgiving. This won’t particularly affect me again until the city resumes street-sweeping in the spring, but there’s something galling about knowing that basically conscientious people sometimes get ticketed for exceeding the 48-hour rule by a few hours while nothing actually happens to a (disabled, I’m told) car that covers a storm drain for months at a time.
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Thanks to all who supported the parking ticket appeals story pitch! Now that we’ve reached our goal, I’m sending in a check to obtain the records. I’ll post updates as they happen.
Please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions for this or other stories.
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Check out some new updates on this story.
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