In April of I received a letter in the mail from the City of Philadelphia stating I had failed to pay a parking ticket. The ticket stating that the ticket was received on March 15 at 5:30pm on the 3900 block of Walnut Street. On that day, as stated by 4 witnesses, I helped pick up my coworkers children 7 blocks away on 46th and Locust at 5:32pm. So, I was not in the area to have received a ticket which I explained to them along with my witnesses and the letter they sent me regarding failure to pay, I did not receive that letter until May 4 but it was dated for April 7th. I
was given a hearing date of August 2nd, 5 months after the alleged offence.
I attended with one of my witnesses, the coworker, whose children I helped pick up from daycare. The officer told me my fine was $56.00 because I failed to pay. When I asked the officer when and where the ticket was issued, he only gave me half answers. When I asked for proof that a physical ticket was issued, he promptly told me that he was going to remove $20.00 from the ticket because I never received a physical ticket. I asked him what suddenly prompted his new attitude and he did not reply but said I needed to pay $36.00 for the ticket. I told him I would not pay because there was no proof that my car was in the area and he told me that they had my car color and license plate number. When I pointed out that this information could be collected from any car by just walking by, he changed the subject and told me I could appeal. I signed the appeal paperwork and before I left, I had the officer print out a
copy of the ticket they had on file so I could review it. The ticket only had bits and pieces of information on it and was CLEARLY LACKING THE TIME the ticket officer saw my car and DID NOT HAVE MY VIN# on it anywhere.
I paid $10.00 to send the appeals paperwork back to the Adjunction office and received 2 letters in the mail from them; one dated towards the end of August stating that my hearing would be December 8th, another 4 months away, and then received another letter from them December 15th, a whole week after the hearing date had passed but the letter was dated November 18th.
When I arrived on December 8th, I was told point blank: The Philadelphia Parking Authority does not need to collect any other information on a car beside the car color and license plate number in order to issue a ticket, and ticket issuing time of day and VIN# is not important.
So, Philadelphia can issue tickets to any car they choose as long as they have a car color and license plate? That means that car driving past a ticket officer can become victims of parking tickets just because they can read the license plate and remember a car color. The PPA is cheating people out of the little money they have because the city is impoverished and bullying citizens and visitors to the city has become a natural game to them. They only collect half information, complete only half their jobs and hide behind hidden authority and brutality. I have refused to pay and plan on taking my case to the Court of Commons.
0 comments