Recently (in the past three days), two of my friends were the victims of questionable ticketing practices by the Chicago Police Department and Chicago Parking Authority. It is no secret that Chicago is facing a MASSIVE deficit ($525 million dollars) and must find new and creative ways to fill that deficit.
Apparently this means squeezing every last dime out of its citizens.
The Sun-Times wrote a good article about the declining revenues of parking tickets which can be found here.
Even our Aldermen speaking up about this issue...
"Aldermen said their constituents are fighting mad when it comes to parking and tickets. "I agree we are in a bad revenue situation," said Ald. Tom Allen, (38th Ward). "But I'm tired of us beating the daylights out of John Q. Citizen to get 50 bucks out of him because he overstayed his parking."
...
"At every community meeting, people are questioning us about the fact that we are attempting to collect more revenue from the tickets," said Ald. Freddrenna Lyle, (6th Ward)."
It is NOT the fault of the citizens of Chicago (or Illinois for that matter) for a deficit of epic proportions.
But unfortunately, it looks like we have to pay for it.
Additional Reading:
1.) Some 2009 stats on parking tickets
2.) Parking Tickets Up, Revenue Down
3.) The Expired Meter<--a parking ticket blog
4.) Traffic cameras billed as answer to Chicago's budget deficit
Oh man...$525 billion sounds bad, but I think the NYC one is a whopping $11 billion!!! Thankfully I don't drive (the parking meter folks are legendary here for their ability to write tickets). I can tell you thought that it is not fun to pay a CITY personal income tax in addition to the state and federal. Almost makes me want to move to Jersey!
ReplyDeleteIs 11billion for the entire state?!
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