There's an article on SF Gate about unequal parking enforcement in different areas of Oakland. A memo from senior parking enforcement supervisor Ronald Abernathy tells parking officers to give "courtesy notices" for parking on the sidewalk and parking in the wrong direction in Montclair and Broadway Terrace (AKA Upper Rockridge). Residents of East Oakland get a $40 to $100 ticket instead.
While there are some narrow streets in the hills that can require creative parking to keep the roads clear, other parts of Oakland have them, too (the article mentions Outlook Avenue which runs through Millsmont and Eastmont Hills.) Unequal enforcement of the parking regs is just wrong. Now that some parking officers have brought this to public attention, hopefully it'll get fixed quickly.
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I seem to remember that the special difficulties posed by windy, narrow, hilly streets were openly discussed by the city council during the parking brouhaha last summer, and the city was fairly upfront about the fact that they were directing enforcement personnel not to ticket cars for certain infractions on certain streets. It would be nice if the Chronicle printed more of the memo so we could see the actual language. It seems like this selective enforcement has been an open secret (or not even a secret at all) since last summer, and reporters were just too distracted by Allen Michaan's antics to pay any attention to the city's REAL parking scandal, which is haphazard, selective, and arbitrary enforcement of existing rules...
One shakes one's head. Maybe Alan Michaan will jump on this.
Honestly, I'm not that surprised. Unequal enforcement has long been an open secret, but this is the first I've heard of an official document creating it.
courtesy notices, eh? i wish those were enforced along College Ave. It makes my blood boil to think of all the stupid tickets I've received lately...
thanks for the comments on my blog!
Oakland North posted the memo (PDF), which says: "Please ensure that Courtesy Notices are placed on vehicles for Sidewalks and Parked the Wrong Way violations on 651 and 643 until further notice. We are currently forming a citizens / city Parking Committee to study the cause and the narrow street issues in these areas." and is dated July 24th, 2009.
651 - East side of Broadway to Emeryville City Limits; north side of 51st Street to Berkeley City Limits.
643 - Park Boulevard east of MacArthur to Montclair; Thornhill Drive to West side of Joaquin Miller Road.
Hope this gets fixed by extending the warnings asap. I remember watching this Council meeting, where there was some back and forth with city employees about road width that should be exempt but no clear decisions. Then the Council directed them to use judgment. Guess its time to say what width now!
An article in the Trib says the problem was fixed verbally within a few weeks, so in theory only tickets between July 24, 2009 and August 7, 2009 would be bad ones. And of course only for those two infractions in areas with narrow streets. Regardless, seems like the city owes at least some people who got bad tickets in other areas.
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