Guardavaccaro then looked back at the meter. “Excuse me, why are you giving me a ticket? The meter just went out this minute. You saw me coming!” Guardavaccaro told the officer.
“I was not in there for more then 20 minutes," she told Bay Currents. "I saw her [the officer] walking around my car -- she was definitely waiting for the meter to run out. She was not nice about it at all. She did not give me a chance.”
What Guardavaccaro didn’t know was that there is now a five-minute grace period after the meter runs out –a new regulation that Mayor Bloomberg fought against. In the NYC Parking Violations Rules and Regulations, code 34 states “Effective March 21, 2010, drivers will get a 5-minute grace period past the expired time on Muni-Meters…During the 5-minute grace period parking tickets cannot be issued.”
“Who wants to waste their time and energy fighting it? I know she was wrong but I’d rather just pay the $35 and get it over with,” said Guardavaccaro.
If she were to challenge the tickets, her case would come before an administrative judge – an employee of the city’s Department of Finance, which collects parking fines.
This is a clear fox-guarding-the-henhouse arrangement, says Assemblyman Alan Maisel of District 59. He has introduced legislation that would make the hearing officers independent of the Department of Finance, which, he stressed, has a vested interest in collecting revenue from parking tickets.
“The legislation would set up an independent tribunal that would hear violations, where the people who are appointed as administrative hearing officers would not be subjective to administrative rebut by the bosses if they’re not generating enough revenue,” said Maisel.
See the Bay Currents video interview with Maisel on the homepage.
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Quota? Not telling!
New Yorkers have always suspected that parking enforcement agents are required to meet quotas – and there periodically are reports indicating such – but the police department continually denies there are any.
“There is no quota,” one Bay area detective told Bay Currents. But he added, “If there was a quota no police officer or detective would ever tell you there was.”
-- Angelina Tala
