Everywhere I have lived, and by that I mean a number of cities across the South and East of the United States, I have had one thing I have been able to take for granted; parking. Not so in my new adopted home, Long Beach, California. I moved specifically to eliminate the commute from beautiful Monrovia, thinking that at least the stress of 2.5 hours on the road every day would be relieved.
How wrong I was as I began to experience a new stress, this one of fear. Every day, since our building offers absolutely no parking whatsoever, I must hunt around within a three block radius for a parking spot. The typical result is none. Not one. Nada. I am then required to park in an illegal spot, hoping that I get out early enough to move the car and get to work without a ticket. Well, that problem has now been solved. Long Beach towed my car and will hold it for ransom until I pay my past due parking tickets. This is thievery of the complicit kind because the city knows very well that there are far more people and cars than there is parking. Do they do anything about it? Of course! They ticket the hell out of us!!!
Never mind the whole concept of civic pride and duty. Completely ignore the legal implications of parking gone mad. Even ditch the idea that if there's a law you shouldn't break it. Laws exist for a reason, after all. We are protected by law. We are made safe by law enforcement (don't pay any attention to the incident on 5/10/05 where a handful of Deputy Sheriff's fired over 100 rounds into a truck to stop one unarmed suspect in the middle of a residential neighborhood). And when the cops can't do anything about it, the elite team of parking enforcement officers and the crack street sweeping commandos can, and do. A lot. Parking is a huge problem in downtown Long Beach. Almost every resident I have spoken with indicates that they have a problem with it (around 70%) or park in their building's structure. And these people must be some sort of menace, because the cops are handing out so many tickets to those who are forced to park illegally.
Sure, you say to yourself, car nicely ensconced in a parking garage or someplace else safe from the laws long parking enforcement hand, that nobody forces us to park illegally. The proverbial "They" aren't holding a gun to our collective heads. No. That's true, but it makes this issue no less of an injustice. What, in turn I ask you, is the benefit of living somewhere but having to park half a mile away? Would you tolerate that? For me it is lofted to an even greater absurdity. My office building is a mere six blocks away! In all honesty I could have semi-permanently parked the car and just walked. Therein lies the rub, gentle readers. I have a lower back injury that prevents me from walking very far. Nevertheless, due to the towing, I was forced to walk this morning. Because of my proximity, there is no point in humoring public transit, so I did it the old fashioned way; I hoofed it. Now that I am out of the way, lets take a look at the real issues involved.
Anecdotally, I've been told that Long Beach is in a severe financial crisis and is certainly seeking ways to bolster its economy. What better way to do that then on the backs of its own citizens. What? How dare I suggest that such an institution actually do something so morally atrocious? Easy. They need money, right? They know they have a parking problem, right? So, lets just ticket those cars parked in the hundreds of illegal spots around the downtown area and put meters on as many as we can get away with. While I'm sure nobody just said that out loud and had a meeting on it, but the various individuals involved are likely smart enough to come to the same conclusion when presented with the same circumstances. Each ignoring their particular circumstances as their turn came around. Each bureaucratic maneuver complimenting the previous in an overall solution tailored to draw in more revenue per citizen than a legitimate program. How?
How indeed! Most people in this world have a job, and the Long Beach area is no exception.in fact, as one of the busiest commercial ports in the world, its a good bet that one of your neighbors probably works there in some capacity. So, assuming that there is a decent amount of revenue already coming in from taxes being paid by those already working in the City of Long Beach, why would the city need to also ticket those people who are not fortunate enough to have located a legal space? Tax revenue is also generated by all taxable sales made within the city limits, including grocery, gasoline, and the ever popular restaurants and bars. All taxed while everyone who visits this city has to park on a meter or pay for parking service. Long Beach is already making what it should be from parking. However, unhappy with that take, LB apparently thought they could just start taking from its already tax burdened citizens.
How do I know this? A cop writing me a parking ticket told me. Not in as many words, no. But it was clear from his description that not so subtly seeking out ticketing (revenue generating?) opportunities in the areas well known to have severe local resident parking issues. It is apparently a large enough source for them to not only dedicate parking enforcement, but to also detail on-duty police officers as well as empower the street sweeping department with the ability to issue parking tickets. Which leads us to today's event. They towed my frigging car because I owed them revenue on too many tickets. The City of Long Beach isn't going to allow some snot-nosed citizen to get away with not paying its protection money. You want just tickets? You need to pay for the privilege. This is straight out mafia shit! It is a built in protection racket, and all of the levels of the city bureaucracy are complicit with this. So, for me to get my car back and be able to start parking it in illegal spots again to accrue more tickets which lead again to the same pathetic conclusion, I need to pay off my old tickets.
My question is simple: Why are cities allowed to define which of their own behaviors can be quarantined from legal action? I am told by a lawyer (who shares my parking woes with me) that the Constitution grants non-Federal governmental bodies the power to do just that. Why? Apparently that's one of those rights things that we, as regular street monkey's, just don't get. The reality is that this is just one more case of the big guy getting to screw the little guy for as long as they can get away with. Well, I'm not sitting around any more. I'm going to do something about it. The plan is to file a Class Action lawsuit again the City of Long Beach for not providing sufficient legal parking for its citizenry. If Long Beach didn't want this issue, it should not have zoned so many residential areas, signed off on so many new apartment buildings, and designed the street parking the way it has. Turning to your own people to get money to pay for the management of the problem you created in the first place is not right, and you will be held accountable for it. I will see to that.
Sincerely,
Tyler
Tyler
Long Beach, California
U.S.A.
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