(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

[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!