by @BarryRafkind in Investigative Reports, Traffic & Parking
Posted on July 27, 2011 at 11:20 pm
Last Modified on July 29, 2011 at 10:09 pm
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Inspired by SJ reporter Andy Metzger’s skeptical review of my investigative article Trends in Parking Ticket Appeals: Uncovered , I followed up about two months ago with the as-yet-unresolved email below to Traffic & Parking Director Matt Dias.
If and when I get an answer, I’ll post it here on SV.
-Barry
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Barry Rafkind
Date: Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 8:52 PM
Subject: Re: FOIA Request
To: Matthew Dias <MDias [at] somervillema.gov>
Cc: Michael Meehan <MMeehan [at] somervillema.gov>
Thanks, Matt. Do you think you’ll have a response soon?
Barry
On Wed, Jun 1, 2011 at 5:45 PM, Matthew Dias <MDias [at] somervillema.gov> wrote:
Hi Barry. I did. But I’m swamped with one of our biggest permit issuance months of the year, and it’s the end of the month. I will respond asap.
Matt
From: Barry Rafkind
Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2011 10:20 AM
To: Matthew Dias
Subject: Re: FOIA Request
Hi Matt,
Just wondering if you saw my email below?
Thanks,
Barry
On Sat, May 21, 2011 at 11:02 PM, Barry Rafkind wrote:
Hi Matt,
Thanks again for your help fulfilling my records request for parking ticket appeals data. I am sure you have already seen my analysis on Somerville Voices in Trends in Parking Ticket Appeals: Uncovered . I would appreciate your help clarifying some of the issues I discovered. I intend to share your answers on the website for the public’s benefit.
In Andy Metzger’s article Setting story straight on Somerville parking appeals , he explained that the two hearing officers with the highest rate of dismissals primarily handle administrative appeals, meaning “there was faulty signage or some other internal city matter that caused the ticket”. However, the only reasons for dismissals in the data set were apology / courtesy / or broken meter. I’d imagine that broken meter would be a type of administrative appeal, is that correct? But Jones only handled 10 meter violations appeals out of 38 and yet his dismissal rate is almost 95%. So, were wrong dismissal reasons put in the data, or is there something else I’m missing?
For dismissal reasons, what do “courtesy” and “apology” mean? What’s the difference? The vast majority of dismissal reasons are for courtesy, but this does not seem to indicate that the ticket was issued in error. Is the decision to dismiss very subjective?
Metzger also explained that handicap parking violations have the highest dismissal rate because they are so often for tickets where the owner just forgot to put up their placard, and “If a person who has a handicap placard appeals a handicap ticket, they win.” So how does your office verify whether the appellant has a handicap placard and why isn’t that fact verified before the ticket is issued in the first place?
How do you explain the relatively high fluctuations in the dismissal rates of Sheppard and Vivolo versus the more stable dismissal rate of Susi?
How do you explain the significantly lower overall dismissal rate for online appeals versus non-online?
Why do certain officers handle more online appeals than others?
What guidelines or training are given to the hearing officers in determining whether to dismiss a ticket? Is there a written policy?
Are appellants expected to pay their ticket on-time even if they appeal? Are late fines imposed if they do not pay on-time? Anecdotally, this appears to be the case. Are these late fines imposed only if the appeal is upheld?
Are there any quality controls on the appeals process, such as case reviews? If so, how often are they performed?
What are the qualifications for becoming an appeals officer? Do the officers in the data meet those qualifications?
Do you have any other reactions to my analysis?
Thanks very much for your help!
Sincerely,
Barry Rafkind
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Barry,
Sorry for the delayed response. Official communications like this fall under my umbrella. So be kind to Matt, I’m the person at fault here.
One thing I would like to note is the numbers you posted show that T&P is willing to listen to reason and consistently takes human factors into account when considering parking ticket appeals. The dismissal rate from July, 2010-January, 2011 was consistently higher than in the corresponding months of the previous year. The total number of tickets issued by the City has dropped by roughly 50,000 during the past two years. That’s not much of a “regime” (as some have been calling T&P of late).
Let me take your questions in order:
1. From your question, you seem confused as to what an administrative dismissal is. It’s pretty simple. Not all dismissals come as the result of a hearing. For instance, if a contractor fails to put up construction signs in a timely manner and a bunch of people get tickets, then the City can waive all of those tickets in one fell swoop with an administrative dismissal. While serving as acting director at T&P, Officer Jones sat in on very few in-person hearings and mostly entered the system to log administrative dismissals, so he had a high dismissal rate.
Of the hearing officers, Ms. Sheppard handles most of the administrative dismissals, which explains why her dismissal rate is higher.
2. Apology means the ticket was issued in error. Courtesy means it is being waived without a finding one way or the other.
3. If the PCO doesn’t see a handicap placard then the assumption is the person has no handicap placard. If that was an oversight by the PCO or the person failed to put up the placard when they parked, then they just need to demonstrate they have handicapped parking privileges.
4. You’ve seen the numbers. Different types of ticket issuance vary with the weather and other external factors. On top of that, hearing officers get a different mix of in-person hearings, online hearings and administrative dismissals. In such a system, it would be odd if a majority of hearings officers had a consistent dismissal rate.
5. For online appeals we get a “What the Heck” Effect: if you figure you’ve got an appeal unlikely to succeed, then the online system is a quick, easy way to try your long shot. People who feel they have a strong case to make, or who have an argument to make that is a bit involved, are more likely to try an appeal in person.
6. One of the initiatives Mr. Dias is working on at this moment (on top of improved customer service and allowing for credit card meter payments) is more formalized regulations for hearing officers. Quality controls will be part of improving customer service.
7. As long as you show up for your scheduled hearing, you are not on the hook for any late fees. If your ticket is not dismissed at the hearing, you then have 10 days to pay it without a late fee being charged.
And may I add that people can call, email, or connect via Facebook or Twitter to 311 to get those kinds of questions answered. In fact, it’s where I got this answer.
8. The main qualifications for a hearing officer are a good disposition and the willingness to devote a lot of time to this city. They perform an important and largely thankless function.
9. My general reaction to your original analysis is you rushed to conclusions without bothering to ask follow up questions. It’s one thing to have a set of numbers and another to understand what they mean. The City has no issue with making numbers public. For instance, starting in August we’re putting up detailed information concerning DPW work orders. If you’re putting something together for publication, please don’t hesitate to ask if you have questions. Answering media inquiries is part of my job.
For people who are really interested in these issues, I encourage them to attend a Traffic Commission meeting. They occur the third Thursday of every month and people can review the agendas online prior to the meeting. The most recent such meetings were on 6/16 and 7/21.
Michael Meehan
Director of Communications
City of Somerville
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Michael, thanks for your thorough response! I left a note of appreciation for Matt at the end of my trends story. I believe he is one of the hardest working and most upstanding City employees we have. Some further thoughts and questions, if you don’t mind:
Re T&P as a Regime : Bill Shelton uses this pejorative description because of the way the City has contrived the T&P policies to maximize revenue, in ways that have sometimes conflicted with the wishes of residents (e.g. expanded permit parking), sometimes hurt businesses (e.g. raising meter rates in business districts), and sometimes seemed like a trap (e.g. street sweeping starting at 8am). It seems the revenue goal remains despite rising dismissal rates and falling ticket numbers.
1. Thanks for the explanation. It would be helpful to distinguish administrative appeals as a separate dismissal reason, so that its impact on the overall dismissal rate per officer can be analyzed. Any reason why administrative and online appeals are not more evenly distributed among the officers? Wouldn’t Jones and Sheppard’s elevated dismissal rates have something to do with their relative lack of online “what the heck” appeals?
4. I’m not convinced that the distributions of ticket types or of online/non-online appeals or of administrative appeals are key factors in explaining the differences in dismissal rate fluctuations between Susi (stable) versus Sheppard or Vivolo (seasonal). According to my chart “Violation Distribution Per Officer”, all three had very similar distributions of ticket types. The chart “Appeal Method by Officer” shows that Susi’s rate of online appeals was a bit more than Vivolo’s, but not dramatically more. You’ve said that Sheppard handled most of the administrative appeals, so that wouldn’t explain why she and Vivolo both had significant dismissal rate fluctuations, if both Susi and Vivolo handled relatively few such appeals. Your thoughts?
5. The “What the Heck” effect is an attractive explanation for higher rejection rates for online appeals, but it must also be true that it’s easier for a hearing officer to reject an appeal when the appellant is not physically present to answer questions and argue his or her case. I can see how it would be more likely to file a frivolous appeal online, but I also think that the ease of rejection biases the system against those who choose to appeal online simply because of the difficulty of finding time during a busy work day to show up in-person. Would the City be amenable to a resident oversight panel periodically auditing online appeals?
6. What’s the time-table for the more formalized regulations and quality control processes? Will these policies be put online?
7. When are late fees imposed for appeals made by mail or online?
8. So knowledge of parking regulations, street layout, or of location-specific factors are not prerequisites for becoming a hearing officer? What about written and oral communication skills or critical thinking skills? Is there something like a civil service exam, perhaps one testing one’s understanding of T&P policies and appeals procedures? How is performance evaluated? I hope the officers are adequately appreciated by the City. I assume they are all good hard-working people doing their best to separate the good appeals from the bad, so I appreciate their service to the community.
9. I agree that I should have delved deeper and asked follow-up questions before publishing my story, and I will try to do so in the future. Of course you are always welcome and encouraged to respond to any perceived inaccuracies or omissions found on this blog. By the way, will parking ticket and appeals data soon be put online similar to the planned release of DPW work orders – I think that would be very helpful to the public’s understanding of what has been a fairly opaque system.
Thanks again for your input!
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Some quick responses for you.
1. The department director is always going to have a low number of actual hearings, online and in-person. And, from a division of labor standpoint, it makes a lot of sense to have one hearing officer handle the bulk of the administrative dismissals. It makes for the efficient disposition of those dismissals, avoiding the pitfall of dismissals falling through the cracks.
4. You’re always going to have a certain amount of entropy. I think where the administration is on the same page as you is in continually assessing policies and procedures.
5. I think that’s a question for the Traffic Commission.
6. There is no strict timetable, but we’ll definitely put any formal policy and procedure changes online.
7. The 10-day window still applies, though people should get in touch with 311 whenever they have a question about when a payment is due. That is the best way to get the right answer.
8. Obviously a lot of things go into it, as with the hiring of any position, though there is no Masters of Parking Hearing Administration degree. The marketplace isn’t filled with T&P domain experts, which means that commitment and disposition play a big role.
9. Good suggestion on appeals data. In general we want to put up as much data as possible.
Anyway, I’m going to bow out on this thread now.
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1. Could administrative appeals be distinguished in the system, so that a quality control analysis can separate them from the rest?
4. Yes, entropy and seasonal patterns are expected, but why did Susi have such lower entropy compared to Sheppard and Vivolo?
6. Awesome!
9. Great, and while you’re at it, how about putting de-personalized 311 requests online!
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