Reader Complains About Erroneous Tickets in Ridgewood

Hi, I made that complaint and continue to send emails as there was no follow up regarding my issue.
Someone asked for details…. happy to provide….
On 3 sepeate incidents over the last 2 yrs my wife received a parking violation for either not having a sticker or parking in an employee lot without a sticker. In all cases the vehicles are registered to me and the tickets, (which are either mailed or placed on the windshield – with no consistency for either method) are issued to the vehicle owner requiring both parties to show up in court should you wish to fight the ticket. Those are the simple facts….
Here are the details as I see them:
Town requires all employees (including business owners) to purchase a monthly or yearly parking pass and you must affix the sticker in the driver side rear side window. Most windows are tinted making it difficult to see them.
Note Mayor and Council: You are providing a parking pass to the employee, not the car, so it should be a hang tag that follows the employee regardless of means of transportation. What if the car is in the shop, rental, borrowed a friend or family members car…. What… buy more stickers?
Then you must park in designated lots and use the park mobile app…. no coin option. So what happens when the app doesn’t work….ticket thats what….
What happens when the enforcement mule decides its raining or snowing and or too busy checking Facebook to bother getting out of the car to check for the sticker…. ticket thats what…. or his admin app doesn’t work or fails show the vehicle as paid even though it has. Again ticket….
Again, if the car is a rental, borrowed from a friend or registered to someone else its an issue because the driver isn’t issued the ticket the vehicle owner is. This now required both individuals to go to court to have it dismissed. (loss of wages and time)
Observation: Enforcement salary, benefits, fuel, insurance and enforcement vehicle cost how much a year?? Guessing has to be easily 100K or more. Then factor in admin staff, utilities, salaries and court time maybe all total 200 – 300K? Too fed up with this abuse to get actual numbers but I bet im close.
Calculate How many tickets are dismissed monthly against number written? After all he has to write so many a month based on borough statistics…. how else would they know if he is effectively doing his job…. But noooo its not a quota.. It’s a performance review.
Subtract how how many went to court and were guilty and paid…. you are left with a quantity of unknown violations of which a percentage were just paid regardless of guilty or not.
So what’s to stop him from writing erroneous tickets or being directed to? After all most individuals wouldn’t waste precious time for a 30.00 ticket…. You now have legal extortion if you ask me. Just like red light cameras which were banned and how hey wanted to issue speeding tickets using distance calcs between tolls based on easy pass. Faceless violations issued to the registered owners of a vehicle regardless if they were operating it or not.
With internet sales increasing every hour, downtown rents through the roof… merchants are barely surviving and without employees and shoppers those businesses will cease to survive.
So really what is the incentive for fee based parking…..
The Answer I received….. other towns do it…..
My response…. if I told you Billy jumped off the bridge you should too… would you think it’s a good idea just because someone else did it?
Seems an incentive for people to seek employment and people to shop in Ridgewood would be achieved by not charging for parking.
If you cannot fiscally manage the town with the taxes you accumulate you should look at your spend and if need be raise taxes to cover the losses for parking at it benefits the community by having a floursihing downtown area with employment opportunities.
I am ashamed of the town council and mayor in their dismissive attitude towards this issue which has now cost me approx 1K in lost wages dealing with this administrative nightmare.
I have offered to help solve the issue… so I am not complaining without offering to resolve it but again…. no response.
Now it comes to light that the Park Mobile solution, which was put in place due to officials stealing quarters, costs more in fees than the town earns…. We call this TCO (true cost of ownership and Return on Investment in the IT world where I have domain expertise.)
If this is true…… how do you all still have jobs…… If I screwed up this bad I would be terminated…..
This isn’t rocket science nor is it a Democrat – Republican conversation…. its common sense and logic….
Stop charging for parking…. sell the enforcement vehicle(s) layoff the parking officials which saves salary and benefits and I bet there isn’t much of a deficit after it all nets out if any at all… Who knows you may actually be positive…..
I may not have all the numbers correct because I don’t have the time or inclination to use the freedom of information act to request records which will cost the town money as well as myself for copies etc just to prove I am right …. ( a ducks a duck – it is as it appears)
What are we left with? A poorly managed system which easily lends itself to corruption and or costly mistakes.
Let’s level the playing field… for every erroneous ticket issued and found not guilty and or dismissed in court, there should be a $100.00 charge back to the town for lost time and wages per individual affected. Then see how many tickets get issued.