(no subject)

[wildflowersoul]

Yar. So I found out that Somerville cops are bored jerks. Came home yesterday to a spanky little orange parking ticket on the borrowed car. I think it's because I used the same space three days in a row, but it just says that the car must be "moved" within 48 hours. I moved it, I went to pick up laundry and do groceries within that time span! It's just that that space was the only one available when I came back. The visitor permit has been clearly in the windshield every day I've had the car. But, I think I found a loophole. The violation on the ticket says "permit parking," and is for $30. Now, looking at the Somerville parking ordinances, I see that there is a violation for "over 48 hours," with a penalty of only $20. That, to me, means that the ticket issued to me is a fraudulent ticket, or at least, should be considered invalid. I wrote a very polite and well-worded appeal letter to the parking office and mailed it today, and am hoping that it'll get resolved quickly. Otherwise I'll just shake my tiny fist and fork over the cash.

But, hey, here's a cartoon about a bunny that Drew found for me a while ago (as seen recently in mrs_muffin's journal). I hope I haven't posted it before, but if I have, then you get to see it again!

Comments

[theamazingjb.livejournal.com]

Generally you have to go into the parking office to appeal in person.
But the guy there is super nice and no matter what the mean women outside say, he will take walk-ins if he is open.

[wildflowersoul.livejournal.com]

It says on the ticket and website to appeal by mail, so I'm trying that route first. I'd rather not piss them off from the get-go!

[theamazingjb.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a better process.
Last year they wouldn't let you appeal by mail.
If you wanted to appeal ,the process was to not send anything in and then they took that as a sign that you wanted to appeal.
Then they would proceed to set up an appeal appointment for you.

I much prefer to just have things taken care of and send the letter off.
I am glad that they changed it, because it was really annoying to have to be off during the day to go in and appeal.

[wildflowersoul.livejournal.com]

Huh. That's such a weird way of doing it, I'm glad they changed it, too! What if it was just a sign that you didn't feel like paying the ticket?

[elsalus.livejournal.com]

Hi, I came over from dezzikitty's journal and i just wanted to add that yes, Somerville parking clerks are jerks. If I understand you correctly, you used the visitor permit for 3 days? If so, then the ticket was probably for using the permit for more than the allotted 2 days. And what they really mean is 2 24-hour periods. So for instance if you came home on Monday night and parked, then parked again on Tuesday, by Wednesday morning you'd have a ticket.

Oh, and if they think the visitor permit is being used by the person living in Somerville and not a guest, they freak and start giving you more tickets. That's what happened to me.

p.s. sorry such a long comment

[wildflowersoul.livejournal.com]

Hi!

I think you're right, but I'm still irked by it =) It turns out that if you call the parking department, they can authorize a car to be parked for longer than that on the permit, so I did that today.

The conundrum I can't get my head around is: You have to have a car to get a resident parking permit. If you don't have a car, all you can get are visitor permits. So if you, say, have a rental car that you need to park for a few days, or borrow a friend's car, you can't use the visitor pass. But you can't get a permanent pass either. *head explodes*

[elsalus.livejournal.com]

Don't even get me started on the intricacies of their parking permit rules. My boyfriend, who is police officer (but not in Somerville) and therefore knows how to interpret laws, had a very lengthy and heated conversation with the director of parking wherein the director ended up getting so mad that he started using the f word and I think they finally gave him a resident permit just so he'd stay away from the parking office.

Good luck and be careful where you park!

[komos.livejournal.com]

Last I knew, Somerville's restrictions on visitor's passes made it such that the car could not use the same visitor's pass for more than 48 hours during a seven day period. This would be unenforceable save for the fact that they're all wired and shit.

[wildflowersoul.livejournal.com]

That's right. But that's a super lame rule, and they should tell people that (or explain it more clearly on the back of the permit, it's not worded very well on there, I thought it was just 48 hours in one spot).

[wisdom-seeker.livejournal.com]

That comic is hysterical! Thanks for sharing it :-)

[wildflowersoul.livejournal.com]

No Prob Limo, glad to share the funny.