He unsuccessfully ran for mayor, pledging to take on the city’s parking enforcement office by offering a one-day amnesty to weary motorists slapped with a parking ticket. Today perennial candidate Michael Schaefer is waging a private war with parking enforcement agents.

For the past three years, Schaefer has parked his car in an improvised space in an alley next to the Monumental Life Insurance Co. headquarters in Mount Vernon, a space city officials said is illegal.