Ben Joravsky:
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It’s all too obvious that the methods by which the city issues tickets for parking violations need some major revamping. I’m sure hundreds of tickets a month are issued unjustly for absurd and outdated laws, or in many cases (like mine) for no apparent reason at all. Of these, I’ll wager that only a fraction are disputed because, unfortunately, experience proves that the city always wins, fair or not.
Issues that could be discussed: how much in revenue the city makes a year from tickets; their record-keeping systems and the problems and mistakes that have occurred through it; (poor?) customer service; how the actual ticket issuers are trained compared to what they actually do when they’re out on their own; and a ton of interviews with people like Susie McSweeney, through which you’ll find that her story probably (sadly) isn’t all that strange. Countless idiosyncrasies in the city’s methods will be uncovered by an in-depth report.
