Urgo - Urgo Dot Org

September 22, 2004

Police County

Okay. Everyone must remember the story about how UMass Parking Services towed by car for being parked in a place I had a sticker for a year ago? Well today I had a similar, but not nearly as severe incident with Alexandria.

When I got my license and registration in August (another long story for another time), the DMV people told me that for my county sticker (basically city/town tax on your car) would be taken care of via postal mail. In other words, they said that I should expect to get the forms in the mail soon to fill out to get my sticker and pay the tax. That day when the papers arrived was this past Saturday, the 18th. I filled out the paper, got it ready to go out in the mail, and dropped them off Sunday. This is where the fun begins. Monday I don�t use my car and then Tuesday when I do I find a parking violation for $35 on my windshield stating that it has been more then 30 days since I got my registration and I was supposed to have my county sticker! It�s not my fault that the city didn�t mail me the forms until after 30 days��.

So today after I got out of an interview (oh didn�t you hear? My job at TDR is pretty much over�. The company ran out of $=[ so I�ve been looking for a new job the past week) today I headed over to city hall to dispute the parking violation. On the ticket it said to go to #423 suite 500 to dispute the ticket so I went right there. Upon entering, the guy goes �where is your evidence?� and sends me to another building to get �evidence�. In the other building I waited in line to speak to a cashier who tells me she can�t help me and I have to go to another place in this building. I go over and wait in line to speak to that person, a manager for that department, and I find out the following information.

Alexandria has a rule that you need a sticker within 30 days of moving to VA. (Okay old news) They get the addresses/etc of the people who need stickers from the DMV once a month, at the end of it, and then mail out the papers half way though the next month. Starting to see the problem here? So theoretically, if you get your registration on the 1st of the month your paperwork for your county sticker won�t be mailed out for another full 45 days!!! In my case, it was a little over a month before I got my paperwork mailed to me (Saturday). So now she tells me that the police department doesn�t know this and doesn�t care so that�s why I got a ticket. GRRRRR. Why can�t the two departments talk to each other she wouldn�t say.

Anyway, now it is about 1:50 (I started all of this at 1pm) and I now have the paperwork to pay for my county sticker. The problem is I still have to go back to #423 suite 500 to get the ticket taken care of� with my �evidence�, their office there closes at 2pm, and I still have to pay for my sticker. I decide to run over to that office first, take care of the ticket, and then head back here to pay for the sticker. 30 minutes later with minimal effort the ticket is canceled (YAY!) and now I have to go back and pay for the sticker. I wait in line AGAIN at the cashier�s place and when I get called I go up to pay. When an establishment takes a credit card they usually take visa or MasterCard and maybe American express and/or discover. This place ONLY took discover! I have a visa and an amex so I was out of luck� I look into my wallet and I only have $20 in cash. The lady says that they take other credit cards over the phone but she wouldn�t take my card in person!! I ended up going outside AGAIN and hunting down an ATM to get the cash out.

After returning to the cashier�s desk with my money in hand I finally got my county sticker and was on my way. I was spared the $35 parking violation but I did pay $1 in metered parking, 37 cents for the stamp on Sunday, and ended up wasting a good two hours of my time just because the city was incompetent and couldn�t mail out my sticker before the cops got ticket happy.

Alrighty then. That�s enough ranting for one day. Thanks for listening. =] �Buy Buy Buy, Sell Sell Sell.� You wanted me to post again so how was that? I�ll try to come up with some pictures soon too.

Posted by Urgo at September 22, 2004 08:58 PM

Comments

I think you are a victim of the usual government bullshit! VOTE LIBERTARIAN! http://www.lp.org

All kidding aside, your story is the usual story of what happens to law-abiding citizens in a government with too many laws and taxes. It doesn't take a lot of logic to fix a problem within the system that is so flawed it can't mail out things twice a month instead of once a month... but do you think they'll fix that? Nope. They'll assign a committee to it, maybe have a few meetings, and years from now there will be some other guy getting a ticket because he was never mailed his stuff either.

Sorry to hear you had to put up with the poop... it's always good to vent it out! ... carry on with life and good luck to you with the job search. :O)

Posted by: irpaC on September 23, 2004 08:59 AM

Dude just give in to the man already. Pay the freaking ticket. Nah actually don't pay the ticket, most cities don't do anything about it unless you get like 3 or more tickets then they might boot your car. I have one ticket unpaid back in Bath. Suckas, you ain't getting my money!

Posted by: marf on October 1, 2004 04:06 PM