In Baltimore City?s historic Mount Vernon neighborhood on a balmy Thursday morning, pedestrians saunter down the sidewalks as the sound of birds chirping fills the air. Gathered on the street are several city parking enforcement agents armed with electronic ticket-writing PDAs, poised to issue citations to errant motorists. Approached by a reporter seeking comment on allegations that city enforcement agents have written dozens of false parking tickets, the ticket writers scatter.
“We can?t talk to you,” says one woman, brandishing her PDA like a Taser as she walks quickly down the block.
“We don?t talk to the press,” she said before vanishing around the corner.
The silence is indeed deafening amid the brewing scandal that city parking personnel have issued bogus tickets ? a silence that, despite a recently launched investigation by the office of the city?s inspector general, leaves city leaders and ticketed citizens scratching their heads asking: Just how widespread is fake ticketing in Baltimore?
“It?s a shame and embarrassing,” said City Councilman Kenneth Harris, D-4th District. “It?s just hard to believe anyone would do this,” he said.
Part of the problem, Harris thinks, is the city?s financial dependence on parking fines.
“The city should not be operating and forecasting revenue based on people failing to feed a meter,” Harris said.
“We should not be using parking tickets to fund city services,” he said.
In current fiscal year 2008, the city expects to write $12 million worth of tickets and collect $8 million in fines. Through July of this year, enforcement agents have issued more than 100,000 citations; in 2006, more than 350,000 parking tickets were written. Nearly half a million tickets issued in 18 months raise concerns for Harris that the city is too dependent on an uncertain source of revenue.
“I hope these folks aren?t under any sort of quotas,” Harris said. “I don?t support quotas.”
City Council Vice President Robert Curran said he hoped the fake ticket-writing was limited to one agent.
“I heard it was a single agent who had issues,” Curran said.
“I hope that?s the extent of it, but it?s something we?ll look into,” he said.
The city Department of Transportation had admitted that agent “H. West” did write some fake tickets, but the agency insists that the agent was disciplined and that the problem has been resolved. However, more drivers have come forward in the past few days saying they are still fighting bogus tickets.
Fully investigating the problem is the key, Curran said. “I know I?m going to take a pounding on this at the next community meeting.”
Yet despite assurances from Mayor Sheila Dixon that the problem is being addressed, city residents still find themselves battling perplexing, if not baffling, citations.
“I received a ticket and I went online to pay, and I had a second ticket issued on the same day but a minute apart and a mile and a half down the road,” said Diane Tomain, a computer analyst who lives in Federal Hill.
Both tickets were issued Saturday by agent “L. Parker.”
“I believe they wrote down the wrong street and apparently did not delete the ticket. I?d like to think the better [of them] rather than [think I?m] being scammed,” she said.
Still, Tomain now has to fight the second ticket in court.
“I have to go walk over, scream, and rant and rave in person.”
