Ticket recipients speak out

I received a parking ticket for being on a street in Baltimore, City that was to be cleaned, in an unsafe area early on a week day.

I live in Severn; I work at Fort Meade; I am 74 years old and never go to Baltimore as I don?t like to drive into the city. I was at work with my car parked in the Fort Meade lot during the time stated on the ticket. Also, the ticket had the wrong make of car listed. I called the Baltimore parking ticket office, and employees looked into it. After several calls, employees decided it couldn?t be right.

Meanwhile, I got a letter from the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration about the ticket not being paid ? with a fine added. The Baltimore finance office sent the ticket to the Baltimore District Attorney?s office to be canceled. I finally got a letter from that office saying the ticket was canceled. But last week, I got a letter from the MVA saying that I owed the parking ticket and can?t get my car license renewed.

So I sent copies of all letters to the MVA but haven?t heard.

I hope you can add this to your list of complaints and send it to the inspector general.

Charlene Kenny

Severn

Letter sent to Baltimore City Police Chief Leonard Hamm via e-mal on Dec. 7, 2006:

Good Morning Chief,

I am hoping that you can help me out with this minor issue.

Apparently, on November 8th a citation (#71486989) was issued to a vehicle for a parking violation on S. Front St. The officer must have made an error in recording the tag number becausethe number in question is associated with my 2003 Ford Explorer. My daughter has that vehicle in New York at Hofstra University.

She has been on Long Island with that vehicle since September of this year.

I believe that the citation was written in error or that the wrong tag number was recorded on the citation or by the clerk that received the citation from the police. Unfortunately, I have no way of checking this without assistance.

As the Chief of Police for the Town of Hampstead, I have very little time to devote to challenging the citation through the courts of Baltimore City and honestly would rather pay the fine than make such a challenge.

If you can assist me in any way, it would be greatly appreciated. If not, thanks anyway. I need to decide whether or not to just pay the fine before December 13th.

R. Kenneth Meekins

Chief of police

Town of Hampstead

Fighting for years

I think that the parking ticket issue in Baltimore City goes way beyond the bogus parking tickets of one officer. I have been fighting the traffic officers in my community for years.

The entire system is flawed based on the fact that the parking ticket officers have no ties to the office of parking fines. And the parking fine employees have no ties to the court system. When you fight a parking ticket, you must appear in person to the parking fine office if you want a record of the request for trial. I have been burned one too many times by just mailing the request in ? I currently have received in the last two weeks three notices for a trial for a parking ticket that I went to trial for and that was dismissed. Luckily in this case, the situation is in my favor and has already been taken care of. However, I have had it happen the other way too.

I fought that parking ticket for 18 months. During that 18months, I requested a new trial date approximately five times, finally getting the approval when appearing in person at the courthouse.

Unfortunately, my registration was suspended during this time because I was waiting for the trial.

After writing a letter to the director of finance complaining about my due process, I was immediately given a trial date, at the same time getting a parking ticket for an expired registration.

When I picked up my letter from the parking fine office to take to the MVA to get my registration, someone neglected to remove the MVA fines that occur when you request a trial. I spent three hours at the DMV on the phone to the parking fine office pleading with it to fax a signed letter to the DMV letting it know that the fines should have been removed.

Thanks for writing about this problem. It?s about time someone noticed.

Carin L. Ganjon

Baltimore

Paperwork proof no help

Concerning The Examiner?s articles about bogus tickets, about two years ago I received a parking ticket in error in Fells Point. Back then, one side of the street had parking meters while the other side did not. I parked on the side without the meters and still received a ticket. It took me many, many phone calls to City Hall to correct the error.

The kicker happened about 18 months later, when it was time to renew my license. I received a notice in the mail that I had to appear “in person” to renew my tags. Unfortunately, I waited till the last day to do so. I took up all my paperwork from the city, which basically said I was given a ticket in error. There was, however, a flag fee, which was never removed. I was livid about this. I paid it, but only because I was up to my ears with work and other obligations. I never pursued it.

It makes me wonder how many others have been hit with flag fees.

Mark Walker

Baltimore

Can’t get a live person

I read with interest your articles about parking tickets in the city. I live in Carroll County but work downtown. Over the two years, I have received two parking citations for illegally parking in the city. I knew I was never in those locations, as I park in the Gallery garage on a daily basis and had never been out of the garage at those times, or into those parts of the city. Unfortunately, after calling the city and being unable to reach a live person, and being unwilling to go to City Hall, I paid both tickets. Hopefully The Examiner?s articles will prevent this from happening to other people. Thanks for writing them.

Brian Martin

Finksburg

Altered locations

I would like to share a story of a bogus parking ticket I received from the city of Baltimore a few years back. I never received a written citation and only learned of the alleged infraction when I received a notice from the city in the mail. It stated that my vehicle was cited for a parking infraction, my registration was flagged, and that I owed the city of Baltimore money.

Since I work downtown, I decided to pay a visit to 200 N. Holliday St. (the building next to City Hall) and inquired about the ticket with the parking folks. The clerk searched the file room for a copy of the ticket, which she produced. The location portion on the violation was altered by someone, meaning the original location was changed from one location to another. The ticket did not provide a vehicle description.

I checked my business diary and phone records for the day in question and presented each along with photos of the alleged violation location to the district court judge. It would have been impossible to be cited in the blocks the city alleged, as each location did not exist. Imaginethe embarrassment that was evident on the face of the parking enforcement officer after I grilled him under testimony.

The case was immediately dismissed, and I walked out of the courtroom with a smile on my face. A happy ending!

Robert Ashlock

Perry Hall

No quota? Oh, really

I?m having trouble with the theory that all of these parking tickets are fraudulently written by the rank and file. People at the highest level of the city?s administration say there is no quota system. But let?s be real for a change. We, Joe and Jane Public, know that there isn?t a quota system in place for municipal employees, but “performance goal” programs are.

While it?s been quite some time since I last received a ticket for wrongdoing, I am assuming that the format of recording a hard copy of the ticket hasn?t changed. When the ticket is written, specific supportive information is recorded, such as tag, make and model of the offending vehicle, along with the violation location and time.

With bogus tickets, my question is: Where are these authors getting their information from? How is it that a citation can be written if the vehicle in question is not available at the location and time of the alleged violation?

We can pretty much guess why the bogus tickets are written ?to raise revenue. Now we need to know how this practice occurred and how to stop it.

Raymond Fitzpatrick

Essex

Us against them

I?d like to commend The Examiner for its reporting about bogus parking tickets being written by some city employees. As explained in one of the articles, it?s so very hard for the average citizen to buck the system in these cases because it usually is a case of “my word against his.” I sincerely hope Mayor Sheila Dixon and the inspector general stay on top of this case, as it has far-reaching implications beyond just false and shoddy work by city employees. And thank you again for following this story. I will watch with anticipation for its outcome.

Glenn Scimonelli

Gaithersburg

Never visit Charm City

I received in the mail a few months ago a fine for parking my car in Baltimore with the license tags expired. I had never been to Baltimore City, and my tags had never been expired. I decided to stand trial and showed the judge my registration card, which proved that my tags were not expired. I was found not guilty. The officer could not explain why this happened. I was told by another officer who did not give his name that this happens often and most people send the money in because they would lose time from work or for other reasons. Could it be that there is an incentive to write fraudulent tickets?

Stanley Baran

Millersville

Beaten, and then ticketed

I was walking with two friends and my dog on Gough Street from Ann toward Patterson Park in Baltimore City around 9:30 p.m. recently. Two of us and the dog live on Gough; we went in our home. The third person had two blocks to go to get to his car ? he was held up at gun-point at the corner of Gough and Duncan. He did not cooperate with the four thugs attacking him, and they punched him four times in the face. He began shouting, and people came out of the local bar. The four assailants ran north up Duncan. After it happened, he called me ? coincidentally as a couple of police cars went by my house. I ran them down and gave them the phone to talk to him. He came back to my house, and the police left and came back for him. They caught the kids and needed him to identify them. They took him to the precinct to get his report and file charges. The oldest was 16; they had two guns and a knife on them.

To add to his evening, he left his car in front of my house with the hazards on when the police took him. When a ticket lady came by, I walked out and told her the story, but she still gave him a $77 ticket!

Life in the city!

Jeff Trueman

Baltimore

A ticket in 19 minutes

I live in Odenton, and I don?t come into Baltimore unless I?m taking my two daughters to one of the museums. On Oct. 14, I drove into Baltimore to take my daughters to the Maryland Science Center.

Because there was a Ravens game that day, parking was scarce. However, I did find several spots a block away on the 500 block of Charles Street on the corner of Lee Street.

On the right side of Charles Street are parking meters and signs that say no parking between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. Nothing on the signs indicated restrictions for parking Saturdays or Sundays, therefore it was OK to park there. My daughters and I left our van at 11:20 am. I returned an hour and a half later to find a ticket stamped at 11:39 am.

Shakik Swiggett

Odenton

Delinquent citation, but no ticket

Before dining at Capital Grille one night, my husband and I parked on Gay Street in front of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection building, after ensuring it was legal to park there. When we finished dinner, we were relieved to see no ticket in our window.

I later got a delinquent citation in the mail for illegally parking in a residential area. I immediately suspected something fishy because there was no citation in my window. After confirming with the city?s residential parking section, I learned there is no residential parking in that area. In fact, there are no residences in the area, only office buildings. I requested a court date and went in March 2007.

Apparently the officer who issued the citation had issued several others.

There were approximately 25 to 30 supposed offenders present who received a citation from the same officer. The officer did not show and all of the offenders? charges were dismissed.

Debra L. Matthews

Baltimore

Judge’s reprimand

I sent this e-mail to The Baltimore Sun and received a response saying the paper could not print my story because it would need to be investigated. (See The Examiner, “Officials: Accused bogus ticket writer still employed by city,” Oct. 24)

Six months ago, I received two parking tickets, two days apart from each other, each in separate parts of the city. Prior to this, I did not have any paper tickets on my car, and had never parked at either location. I went to the parking ticket division to investigate. The secretary made copies of my parking tickets, and I requested a court date. Upon reading the tickets, I noted that both were written by the same officer. One ticket was written on a weekday morning in Brooklyn, when I was working in Annapolis. I had my employer write a letter of verification.

This past week, I finally had my court date. Before entering the room, I met a woman in the same situation. She received a parking ticket via mail for illegally parking in a part of the city she had never been ? and ironically enough, it was written by the same officer. While sitting in the courtroom awaiting my turn, I listened to a man testify. He lived two blocks from me and received two parking tickets on the same days I had. The officer didn?t have the hard copies of the ticket, so the man was found “not guilty.”

When it was my turn to testify, the same thing happened to me. The same officer did not have the hard copies, and I was found “not guilty.” I was then reprimanded by the judge, who said I should consider myself luckybecause I was only found “not guilty” because the officer did not have the tickets. She added that I was taking risks by parking illegally, obviously implying that I was the guilty party. I then explained to the judge that I was the victim of fraudulent tickets, and that I had proof of my innocence. She wanted to hear no part of it and sided with the officer.

I realized then that this officer could continue to write fraudulent tickets by claiming not to have hard copies of tickets when requested in court.

I do not feel justice has been served. Until someone outside of the court system is willing to listen, this will continue to happen. I have recently submitted a letter the city in hopes of a resolution.

Erica Prentice

Baltimore