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

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.

RE: Late to this.

[oneagain.livejournal.com]

Thanks for speaking up. I'm pretty behind on reading lj, but it's probably just as well, not interested in an argument (and folks can get mean here), so I commented on the entry and not to the last thread--but I did want the OP to feel supported, and I wanted it on file, so to speak, that I agree wholeheartedly. It helps when folks who have privilege in these areas acknowledge this to the end, among other things, to help those who don't--so I thank you both.

RE: *sigh*

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

No, Somerville sets the amount of parking fines. For most fines, $50 is the *maximum* Somerville can choose. (Higher limits are allowed for things like hydrants and handicapped parking.)

They could make the expired registration ticket a more reasonable $15 if they wanted.

RE: *sigh*

[crankyoldguy.livejournal.com]

This isn't a parking fine, this should be a citation based on a violation of state law. See MGL Title XIV Chap 90 Section 20 which sets the fine at $50 for owning a motor vehicle without a valid inspection sticker.

By collusion of the state and the city, Traffic & Parking officers are allowed to act as agents for the Commonwealth in issuing the tickets and in return the city gets to keep some or all of the fine.

Now, I haven't seen one of these tickets, so perhaps Somerville is just issuing "friendly reminders" to get a new inspection sticker, which happen to come at a $50 price. If that were the case, then I would agree with you.

-Gary