May 25: Message to Susan Clippinger, Director of Traffic, Parking, & Transportation
Annoying as it is to have parking meters in front of my house at which you personally park YOUR car all day on most days, it is especially annoying when one of your thoroughly unprofessional parking officers chooses to harass me for pulling up in front of my house to unload groceries for all of two minutes without feeding the meter. When I asked her to just cut me some slack, she circled back to the meter getting ready to write me a ticket. She told me to take it up with you, so I am.
From which pool exactly do you draw your employees, Susan? Recent news stories suggest it’s a rather shallow pool. This particular “officer” is apparently well known for her harassment of people. I feel certain that now that she has matched my address, my face, and my vehicle I can expect to get “special treatment” from her at every turn. Perhaps I’ll point her out to you when next we meet. In the meantime, perhaps you’ll finally give some consideration to a policy regarding people without driveways and with parking meters in front of their homes. In my case, the primary users of the metered spaces on Broadway and on Inman Street are those coming to visit your very own department at 344 Broadway. Would it be so difficult for you to instruct your officers to cut some slack for the actual residents of these streets who need to occasionally unload groceries? Would that kill you, Susan?
Councillor Toomey has raised this issue on numerous occasions and you’ve ignored him every time. No wonder most elected officials hold you in such low regard. If the state-mandated Traffic Board existed, I would petition them, but you have chosen to ignore state law for many years now – leaving citizens no recourse other than to beg you when they feel a regulation should be changed. In the meantime, just cut us a little slack, OK? – Robert Winters