To self-serve and protect -- our own interests...

[inkarn8.livejournal.com]

Does anyone know why the City would ticket Somerville's own residents for expired inspection stickers? -- Two tickets 3 days apart? If I owned a driveway, they would not have done this... Can't they stick to the spirit of protecting our residential parking spots from outsiders? How about a warning instead, or a friendly reminder? And then a few days to get a sticker...

And why do they ticket cars after the street cleaner has already passed? I don't get any of those tickets for that reason, but it seems silly to not be able to park after the cleaner has clearly already passed... Is anyone else interested in getting some of these unfriendly policies changed? Also, why do we pay an extra Internet fee to pay tickets and update parking passes for a service which clearly must save the city time and money from waiting on us in person? How does the city award the contract to an Internet company which is making so much money for so little service?

Does anyone have a list of local politicians that support these policies and another list of who would rather see changes made?

Thanks so much!

Comments

[rmd.livejournal.com]

Does anyone know why the City would ticket Somerville's own residents for expired inspection stickers?

Because it's illegal to have an uninspected vehicle on the street. State, not city, law. I've gotten nailed by this when parked in a different city when I had an expired ticket.

[keithn.livejournal.com]

The city actually only started doing this in 2011:

http://www.somervillema.gov/news/city-begin-writing-parking-tickets-expired-registrations-and-inspections

The money goes straight to the city and not the state. This seems pretty transparently designed to increase city revenue, especially given this line:

The new policy was approved during the City budget deliberation process in June and the violations will cost $50.

Notice budget deliberation and not safety deliberation. I can't imagine that going down each street on September 1 looking for expired August stickers is notably increasing city safety.

The city thanks you for your contribution, inkarn8.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

Interesting! Since it's a state-wide infraction, I didn't realize municipalities had leeway on whether or not to enforce it.

[somerfriend.livejournal.com]

Methods of increasing revenue that also improve citizen behavior and the citizen has a choice to take action to avoid being cited seem like the best revenue producers there are. If they got softer, people would be less likely to comply as fast.

That said, having been ticketed twice in a 24 hour period for not having an inspection on a 1 year old car I can sympathize with you that at some point it becomes double jeopardy. And it is for some reason a psychological injury to get a ticket, we all feel that way.

History of these decisions being made in the dark?

[inkarn8.livejournal.com]

Is there a history of this?

"The Somerville Chamber of Commerce broke the news the next morning. Egg, meet face. Total PR nightmare. Somervillains were equally angry over the changes themselves - the potential impact on business and quality of life - and the way they were made: by an appointed five-person body in the dark of night. Not even most aldermen knew.

It was "unacceptable," said Davis Square alderman Rebekah Gewirtz. "They should've had a public community process."" http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/somerville/2010/06/by_danielle_dreilinger_globe_c_47.html

[inkarn8.livejournal.com]

Is it illegal to drive or park without an inspection? Or both... You know what else is illegal in some communities? High interest rates on pay day loans. Illegal in some communities and legal in others... Take Texas for instance: "AUSTIN (AP/KXAN) — Come next March, Texas drivers will no longer be required to have an inspection sticker on their windshield.

The Texas Department of Motor Vehicles is getting rid of inspection stickers. You still have to get an inspection, but that inspection will become tied with your registration." http://kxan.com/2014/06/24/texas-to-no-longer-require-auto-inspection-sticker/

[ron_newman]

How much is the fee for paying parking tickets online, and for buying permits online?

[inkarn8.livejournal.com]

Actually, I just paid for these two tickets and there was no fee. Maybe that has changed, or I had a ticket for another town which does charge fees... It has been a while..

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

Consider yourself lucky you weren't ticketed for the expired sticker while driving.

[inkarn8.livejournal.com]

Why, would that also be a moving violation which would raise my Insurance rates..? I believe I have seen a warning issued that way, probably because it was a fairly recent expiration...

[inkarn8.livejournal.com]

I just discovered this about Texas.. I assume many other places have more equitable policies as well..

Texas law (until March 2015 when the law will change) allows you to obtain an Administrative Dismissal of an Expired Inspection ticket if the following terms are met:

1) The Expired Inspection is remedied within 20 working days;
2) The Inspection Sticker was NOT expired for more than 60 days at the time of the ticket; and
3) You pay the $20 Administrative Dismissal Fee

Edit: I changed the example form Registration to Expired Inspection..

[inkarn8.livejournal.com]

Not totally sure yet, but it seems that it will raise your insurance premiums regardless if you are driving or not... Several others have stated that:

http://johnsonandrohan.com/blog/?cat=7

[richls.livejournal.com]

Better than getting the ticket while you're driving as a moving violation... Consider yourself lucky. Not only do they ticket you and fine you, but they also make you get out of your car and have it towed, which is an extra $100 cash straight into the pocket of the tow company. It doesn't make sense that they treat you this way for a 1-day expired sticker, but speeding, texting and even plowing through red lights don't get that kind of treatment.

[inkarn8.livejournal.com]

I can't see that going over very well or for very long anywhere.. People with recently expired inspection tickets probably get a warning in most instances... Instead, I consider myself unlucky to not have the same inspection sticker policy here as in Texas.. "If your registration expires before your current inspection, a DMV spokesperson says you will still be allowed to register during the transition without an additional inspection.

Department of Motor Vehicles Director Whitney Brewster told a Senate panel Monday that separate stickers will no longer be needed for the inspection and auto registration. A single sticker will be proof of both." http://kxan.com/2014/06/24/texas-to-no-longer-require-auto-inspection-sticker/

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

It's interesting how inconsistent enforcement is, though. There have been times I've gone months past inspection without ever noticing it without any problem. And one time when my sticker expired at the end of the year and I was pulled over as part of a checkpoint in Central Square on January 2. But it was pretty obvious they were using the excuse to look for bigger bad guys so I was let off with a warning.

It was pretty embarrassing since I had clients in the car, but it would have been far worse if I'd also gotten a ticket and/or had my car towed. (The clients were very understanding.)

[grapefruiteater.livejournal.com]

That's not necessarily true. I was ticketed for an expired inspection sticker while driving, and the officer just handed me the ticket and let me drive away. They didn't make me get out of the car, the car wasn't towed, and I wasn't fined above the amount of the ticket itself. This was in 2012, so it's possible that things have changed, although I'd be surprised.

[inkarn8.livejournal.com]

My wife has been wanting a curb-cut in order to add driveway to our property. This, along with the advent of electric cars has convinced me that is probably a good decision and time to pursue that...

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

Unless things have changed significantly from a couple years back, any approval for a curb cut requires that there be more off-street parking created than the curb cut removes from on-street parking (so, no one-car driveways). There may be other restrictions, but I don't know about those.

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

Somerville has been desperate to raise revenue ever since the crash. Even during good times, its tax situation is poor, because there isn't much high-value residential property and no large retail developments. It causes a lot less complaint from voters to raise fines of various sorts than to raise real-estate taxes. (And fines aren't subject to Proposition 2 rules.)

Does anyone have a list of local politicians that support these policies and another list of who would rather see changes made?

Find the city councilor for your district and complain. (And if you don't vote, why would they listen to you?)

[inkarn8.livejournal.com]

Exactly, and we do vote... thanks for that response..

[clevernonsense.livejournal.com]

This is part of why I did not buy a house in Somerville. In general, I don't really want to be a part of the city.

[inkarn8.livejournal.com]

I found this at Yelp: Apparently Yelp has an entire section on Somerville's parking and traffic issues. (http://www.yelp.com/biz/city-of-somerville-department-of-traffic-and-parking-somerville)...

Why does everyone here feel so helpless and victimized? Why are all of your 'tips' based on how we should feel good about not getting towed and how we should fear the long arm of the law? Can't any of you expect to change things in your community? Are you really that powerless? All we have to do is elect in the right aldermen and make an issue out of the things that we want fixed. Like this.



"Because Somerville can't manage to balance its budget with the exorbitant taxes it already levies on us, Somerville quietly, recently institued tickets for expired inspection stickers, starting the end of September 2011.

This essentially translates to an extra tax on the lower and middle classes who cannot afford to have private driveways and must park on the streets instead.

When this law quietly went into effect, I was out of town. My car was parked in front of my house. My inspection sticker expired October 1. I returned October 5 to see that the same officer had come by, every day, and put a new ticket for the same expired inspection sticker on my car.

First of all, the parking officers themselves are lazy crooks who are just trying to make quota. It was obvious that I had not been back to my car or gotten any of the tickets. Ticketing me again every day was just an easy way for them to make more money.

Oh, and as I learned today, if you unsuccessfully appeal a ticket, Somerville tacks on additional penalty fees to your original ticket.

This is the most money grubbing, poorly run city I have ever lived in. Shame on you, Somerville!!"

*sigh*

[craigindaville.livejournal.com]

We all complain about getting parking tickets. No one likes them. That's pretty much a universal truth. And we all have that initial reaction of "I didn't deserve this because [fill in excuse here]" even when we know that, in all honesty, the ticket was written for a valid reason.

However, I think the pushback you're getting here is that your whole premise is based on "why can't the law not apply to me, or at least not for a few days because that's what I think is fair for me."

Think about that for a minute. Getting inspection stickers isn't really a big deal. They take 15 minutes, and can be done any day of the month leading up to the expiration date, at literally thousands of service stations throughout the state. A date that you know is coming, because it is pasted on your windshield for you to see every time you drive or even just walk by your car. So to then complain that Somerville is a horrible city for enforcing the law about making sure your inspection is up to date, something that is not sneaky and is well-known and can be dealt with for up to 31 days in advance... you can see where I'm going here.

Everyone here is suggesting that you deal with it because that's what grown adults do when they don't follow the law. They deal with it. Or should we start petitioning that the city, say, stop writing tickets for cars parked at meters that expire, because who keeps change on them anyway nowadays amirite? I mean, the city's just grubbing for money when it enforces temporary parking rules when those shouldn't even apply to Somerville residents, right?

As stated above, considering all of the BS that can be thrown at people from municipal, state, and federal governments, making this your hill to die on is very odd. And highly entitled, frankly. Not everyone gets a trophy, and not everyone gets a firm, but gentle talking-to by Mr. Police Officer Man when they break the law. Sometimes the consequences are the same for everyone, be they one of the Super Special Millenials or one of the common folk.

Late to this.

[oneagain.livejournal.com]

I have to agree with the OP here. We used to get reminders in the mail that we needed to deal with this; then we got tickets, and getting a second ticket (or 4 or 5 right after when the law had *just* changed) on a car still parked in the same location, with the ticket still on it, is rather offensive. It is the law that this can be done; I agree wtih the argument that it should not be, and that it targets folks who already have less resources (an off-street parking spot, to start with) than it does others. And $20 is a lot better than $50; I'm not even sure why that would be an argument except to someone who does not have money issues (see below comment about privilege). I'm glad there are people talking about this who can afford to do so, because the folks disproportionaely hit are going to have less focus to do so, and that is how it is designed--hit folks less likely to be *able* to make a fuss over it. But then I think much of what the Somerville Parking folks do is evil, even more evil than this--but I'm certainly not going to dissuade someone from speaking up against something that they think is wrong when those disproportionately hit by these sorts of things don't have as much capacity for it. And the whole "there are things more evil than this, why this" argument does not fly with me; the more rules there are out there, the harder it is to summon the energy to get at all of them, and this kind of thinking supports that maneuver. I'm glad the OP is saying something here. As for the burden of figuring out how to keep track of warnings? I think this could be dealt with if it was important; I don't think only things that make money for the city are worth the bother; there is value in having Somerville be friendlier, which is the opposite direction it has been going in this manner, and we seem to forget that the people making these decision are theoretically working for *us*, so including our values in their job descriptions does not seem strange to me.

Also, thinking it is easy to have the focus to get this dealt with before a ticket happens is a form of priveledge, particularly when poorer folks have so damned many *more* things to look out for all the time as it is. I noticed the person above siding with you said that they'd gotten a ticket, but that it was their problem; it's not hard to miss these deadlines, and to say "it's on your windshield, you have no excuse" really does not take into account the realities of many, apparently including the person above siding with you, which is why they make money on it. I agree with friendlier policies. I hate what the parking situation has become here; where I live, there amount of parking available to me did not changed when the rules became more stringent; the changes were completely for revenue and just made even more hoops to jump through to have gatherings, especially when they were impromptu (one of the oringal appeals of this part of Somerville) and thinking this is fair and reasonable when it wasn't needed is a form of brainwashed denial as far as I am concerned.

RE: Late to this.

[avjudge]

Oneagain, I completely agree with you and am posting to say so because the loudest voices here (other than the OP) seem to have been those that say the city should grab everything from us it can and it's solely our problem if we don't (or can't) stay on top of everything.

To support what you say, I have a driveway and last summer from May through August blissfully (=ignorantly) drove around with an expired sticker - for some reason I thought I'd already had it done, until I went in for an oil change and the garage pointed it out to me (and inspected me). I have no excuse except that years go by so fast that it felt like just yesterday I'd had it inspected, and like anything you look at every day that sticker became invisible to me - so much for "it's there to remind you every day." I could do this because I'm rich - well, not actually rich, but well-off enough to own a driveway in this city. Also a 50ish white female, so cops are generally not going to profile me as anything but boring.

I've been here - not forever, but since 2006 - long enough to see the city put these parking and ticketing changes in place, and I've been reading the local papers online for that time, and the city has never tried to hide the fact that the changes were, first and foremost, a source of revenue - a "gotcha" source of revenue - not primarily in the interest of helping anyone, and certainly not in response to the desires of the population that - in theory - the government represents.