Parking Fines

For thousands of Annapolis-area residents incorrectly billed last month for parking violations, the end may finally be in sight. Citation Management, the Milwaukee-based company recently hired by the city to process its parking tickets, has nearly finished frantic efforts to correct accounting problems after mailing two successive waves of erroneous bills to area drivers who had been ticketed for parking violations. Working closely with city officials, Citation hopes to set things right by mailing final correction letters to affected drivers this week.

If you're planning to illegally park at a Baltimore Ravens game this season, it's going to cost you a whopping $240 fine - nearly five times what it cost last year. Fines on illegally parked cars around M&T Bank Stadium were $52 in the 2002 season, which some fans considered a reasonable price to pay for parking, according to city officials. Fans who arrived four and five in a car would split the fine rather than observe signs only allowing parking with a special permit. Beginning with the Ravens' first home game against the Cleveland Browns on Sunday, the city will impound illegally parked vehicles instead of relocating them near the stadium as was done last season.

Despite vehement opposition from operators of downtown hotels and parking garages, Baltimore City Council members stood firm Thursday in their support of a contentious package of new taxes, saying the money was needed to stem a torrent of red ink. "We're facing a $121 million deficit," said Councilwoman Helen L. Holton, head of the council's finance committee. "What do we do?" Holton and other committee members gently chided a group of business leaders who came to a public hearing to complain, reminding them repeatedly of the city's dismal financial state and all but declaring that, if taxes are not raised, disaster will follow.

AN INCREASE IN parking fines is not normally a cause for celebration, but in the case of Ocean City, we must make an exception. As of July 1, parking at an expired meter could result in a $15 ticket. It used to cost $5. But here's the problem with the old fine: Since meters charge $1 per hour, it was actually cheaper for the all-day beach-goer to save his quarters and take the ticket. Drivers can moan about the expense, but at least balance has been restored to the resort's parking economics.

PLENTY OF things deserve the protection of confidentiality. Parking fines are not among them.When parking spaces are as rare as they are at University of Maryland College Park, the competition for finding one can be as fierce as an NCAA basketball play-off.So imagine how students, faculty and administrators must have felt to learn a couple of years ago that a basketball player had found his own way of shutting out the competition by parking pretty much as he pleased -- accumulating more than $8,000 in fines in the process.

Whit MacCuaig took off work to fight his $252 ticket for double-parking in front of his Gough Street rowhouse. He went to court Thursday dressed in a suit and armed with photographs and a letter from a city councilman pleading for leniency. Turns out, he didn't really have to go to court at all. District Judge Charles A. Chiapparelli found MacCuaig not guilty before he could fully rise from the gallery bench, a scene played out over and over again during the 9 a.m. docket in Room 6 at the John R. Hargrove courthouse on South Baltimore's Patapsco Avenue.

Parking violators in Howard County might want to address those overdue fines, or they could be collecting their vehicles from the impound lot and paying towing, storage and late fees, too. The County Council is considering a bill that would authorize the Police Department to tow a vehicle for even one parking ticket that has gone unpaid for 90 days. Council Chairman Calvin Ball, who introduced the bill Oct. 3, said the measure addresses a challenging issue in many county neighborhoods.

THE CITY COUNCIL'S tentative decision to increase parking fines to up to $40 may indeed produce $5 million for the badly depleted municipal coffers. But it fails to address the real issue: a desperate shortage of short-term parking, particularly in the Inner Harbor area. The City Council ought to mandate municipal traffic planners, the Parking Authority and the Downtown Partnership to come up with quick and innovative ways to create more one-hour metered parking downtown. "If you just need to run in somewhere to pick up something, it's very, very difficult to find a space," acknowledges Downtown Partnership's Michele Whelley.

Kenny Hall is a night-shift guard at a prison, so he understands the importance of paying debts. That is why he showed up at the city's parking fines section at 7:30 a.m. yesterday -- an hour before the office opened.Mr. Hall, 31, was at the front of yesterday's line to take advantage of the city's second parking amnesty, which began Aug. 1. The program, last offered in the fall of 1992, allows parking scofflaws to pay off delinquent tickets without shelling out for the hundreds of dollars they owe in late fees.

Annapolis merchants want the City Council to abolish metered parking downtown and slash the cost of parking tickets, undoing the most controversial parts of a new parking plan enacted in July.The increased parking meter rates in the plan have sharply cut into their businesses, they plan to tell the council's Economic Matters Committee tonight."The sense is people are more concerned about the parking meters than what they're shopping for," said Ann Widener, president of the Business Association for Maryland Ave. and State Circle.