Before Patterson's turn, Phosia Taylor strode in for her hearing. She looked mad, scowling at the code enforcement officer, Arlene Jones, a stout woman in a white polo shirt and dreadlocks. It was Jones who had cited Taylor for having a car in her driveway without the legally required front plate.
The clerk darkened the room and projected photos of the 1991 Saab on the wall. Taylor did not dispute the violation. But she said the car was outside the garage only because she had donated it to a cancer association.
When the organization failed to arrive, she said, she called the Maryland School for the Blind, which did retrieve the Saab two weeks after the violation date. She had proof. Welch found her guilty but cut the $60 fine to $30.
"I'm on a fixed income!" Taylor protested.
OK, Welch said, you get a 29-day extension.
"You can extend it forever," Taylor shot back, "because I don't have it."
Immediately afterward, though, Taylor paid the $30. Later she told a reporter that she could afford the fine. "I can pay. I got money." But, she added, "I didn't want to pay."
Next came Patterson, wearing his dark gray maintenance man uniform. He was followed by William McFarlane, a landlord fined because his tenants put trash out on the wrong day and overfilled the cans. No reduction for him. He paid the full $200.
Next up was Aleta Ellis. "I am guilty," she announced, admitting that she did indeed put a single, neatly tied garbage bag in front of her rowhouse on Division Street. That was a no-no: All trash must be in sealed cans to thwart Dumpster-diving rats.
Ellis told Welch that while she owned trash cans, she didn't use them because they often wind up way down the block by the time she gets off her 12-hour shift as a hospital cook.
"From here on out, put it in a can," Welch advised before eliminating her $50 fine. That relieved Ellis. "Food is very expensive," she said outside. "BGE bills are huge."
Argee Freeman had seven violations and faced $530 in fines for, among other things, not having a proper parking pad.
Freeman disputed that a Dodge truck was parked illegally on grass in his backyard; he insisted there really was concrete hiding under the overgrowth. He also called it unfair for Jones to cite him Dec. 4 for trash bags in his backyard and again two weeks later on the same charge - accumulation of trash.
"Same trash she saw the first time," Freeman told Welch. "How can it accumulate if it's the same? Seems like double jeopardy to me."
Different sense of "accumulate," replied Welch. She found him guilty on six of seven violations. Even he got a discount. After the judge's reductions, his fines came to $315.
Welcome as it was, that was still a bitter pill, given that Freeman's employer has cut his hours because of a fall in business. As he lamented, "it's tough times right now."
