Perils of Parking on a Saturday

[talonvaki.livejournal.com]

What happened on Summer Street last Saturday...

Comments

[matthew miller (from livejournal.com)]

That sucks. Any chance of contesting and getting your money back, given the photo evidence and clearly not-up-to-the-rules warning?

[dylanesque29.livejournal.com]

Maybe all the people who have been hosed by the shoddy job they did of warning people over the last few months should consider a class-action lawsuit against Rudy's and the city......

[komos.livejournal.com]

What's Rudy's got to do with city infrastructure?

[dylanesque29.livejournal.com]

IIRC, Rudy's is the tow-er that the city always seems to use for this stuff. Ergo, if signs weren't put up or were put up improperly, then they have no business towing cars.

[komos.livejournal.com]

Ah... that makes more sense than the Tex-Mex restaurant. :D

[talonvaki.livejournal.com]

Pat's Towing.
That's who did it.

[four-thorns.livejournal.com]

i think letting the press now about it would be a good start. the boston globe spotlight team recently did a huge report on abuse by debt collectors and the court system, so why not a report on a corrupt parking and transportation department?

[thebostonreader.livejournal.com]

I think you mean Pat's Towing. But I think it's more the city's fault, or at least it was in my case. And that cop who made me pay the towtruck guy but found it suspiciously easy to get my money back later. (not that I minded getting my money back)

See http://community.livejournal.com/davis_square/689797.html (my post) and http://community.livejournal.com/davis_square/638326.html for earlier discussions of questionable towing, on Willow Ave. and Kidder Ave.

At the time I wrote to our alderperson, Rebekah Gewirtz, who put in a request at the Oct. 26 BOA meeting.

[xuth.livejournal.com]

Apparently my previous attempt to respond to this post this morning failed. Can criminal charges be pressed against the city. Autotheft comes to mind specifically.

[dirty-devlin.livejournal.com]

The city repaved my street last year and it was the same thing - a few signs here or there with nothing within the general area of where I usually park. A lot of cars got towed too. It sucks.

They really should come up with a better way to inform us...

[ron_newman]

Yeah, why can't they use the phone blast, or leaflet door to door?

or...

[matthew miller (from livejournal.com)]

Or, y'know, post the notices properly in advance and where they'll be seen?

[on-reserve.livejournal.com]

This is disgusting. I would be so thrilled with a class-action lawsuit -- it might be the only thing to curb the arrogance in city hall.

[four-thorns.livejournal.com]

you really should email the boston globe (maybe the spotlight team), the herald, any consumer reporter for the local news (susan wornick at wcvb, for example) and let them know about this. it's an ongoing problem, and i think getting some media attention to the issue would solve things a lot faster than anything else, or at least put some pressure on the city to clean up their act. i personally have been ripped off by the city before and i think it's horrible that a city would screw over its own residents in such a fashion. shit has to change.

[ron_newman]

Also, while you're at it, tell the Somerville News and the Somerville Journal.

[four-thorns.livejournal.com]

contact info for the spotlight team (https://bostonglobe.com/aboutus/contact/default.asp?fld=cat&crit=Spotlight&exact=y)

[talonvaki.livejournal.com]

Awesome. I'll do that.

[aquaflame16.livejournal.com]

Back in September when they did my section, they came rumbling in Tuesday morning after Labor Day at about 7:00 am. I was woken up by the noise of the machines and looked out and thought to myself that something must be going on. So, not having seen a single sign anywhere on my street when I parked my car the night before, I called the police department to find out. You know what the woman there said? well, I don't have anything about that, if there's no signs it's fine.

Okay, I decide it must be okay. Well, five minutes later I look out the window (this is why I like to be able to park where I can see my car) and they're ripping up the pavement a few feet behind my car. Yikes! So I throw some clothes on, run out and move the car. I looked around for signs, there weren't any, though an adjacent road had one every few houses on both sides . . .

Later in the day when I was walking up towards Ball square (mostly I walk/T places, I don't actually use my car all that much) I happened to pass a cop directing traffic up at that end of the street and I asked him why there were no signs. He said, well we put them up (note, he claimed they did this Thursday before Labor Day weekend!!!!! That is supposed to be sufficient. I can't say, because I was away that week, but my partner didn't remember ever seeing any.) He actually said something about not being responsible for babysitting the signs!!! I wish I had that on tape or something.

I basically was very lucky I didn't get totally screwed over by that, but I came pretty damn close, and it pissed the hell out of me.