Parking Tickets

In Baltimore City Two-day amnesty on parking tickets will be after Sept. 15 Hold those tickets: The two-day amnesty period for paying late parking tickets without penalties will not be scheduled until after mid-September, city officials said yesterday. Legislation approved by the City Council this month provides a chance to pay overdue parking tickets without fines or other penalties, but does not become law until Sept. 15 - and the city administration cannot determine the two days until then.

WASHINGTON -- We say that nobody is above the law in this country, but that is not true.Foreign diplomats, their spouses, children, staffs, etc., are all above the law here.Over the years, they have been accused of shoplifting, counterfeiting, weapons violations, assault, heroin smuggling and keeping slaves.They have been accused of -- and occasionally admit to -- acts of rape.But they are never punished.Peter Christiansen, a retired New York police detective, once testified before a Senate committee that he had tracked down a man suspected of 15 rapes.

COLLEGE PARK -- The day after Maryland point guard Duane Simpkins publicly apologized for accepting an improper loan to pay campus parking fines, he received another ticket.Simpkins, a senior who sat out the final game of a three-game, NCAA-imposed suspension last night, received a $20 ticket Feb. 17 for parking in a space not assigned to him. According to parking records obtained by The Sun, he has received 17 tickets and incurred $290 in fines since he discussed this problem with coach Gary Williams in November.

A Rockville man died owing the town of Union Bridge $16.His parking ticket, dated Dec. 1, 1978, is among two decades worth of parking tickets crammed into dust-covered boxes in the town hall. Some parking tickets have been paid. Many haven't. Overdue tickets are assessed a $5 monthly administrative fee.Nobody in town knows for sure how many tickets remain unpaid. Meter monitor Ellen Leppo stopped keeping track years ago."I got tired of keeping tally," she said.Hoping to collect on some of these unpaid tickets, town officials are launching a 30-day amnesty program.

Facing the possibility of tens of thousands of drivers lining up over two days to pay overdue parking tickets, the city has turned to a money-order company to help collect some of the $113 million it is owed. Nearly 200,000 people have amassed a total of 358,393 citations, all of which have been hit with extra fines because they weren't paid on time. But the city is offering to let drivers off the hook for just a fraction of the total through a parking-ticket amnesty program Oct. 9 and 10. The program will allow drivers to pay old tickets without late fees, reducing the maximum the city could collect to $14.6 million.

A Rockville man died owing the Town of Union Bridge $16.His parking ticket, dated Dec. 1, 1978, is among two decades' worth of parking tickets crammed into dust-covered boxes in the town hall. Some parking tickets have been paid. Many haven't. Overdue tickets are assessed $5 monthly administrative fees.Nobody in town knows for sure how many tickets remain unpaid. Meter monitor Ellen Leppo stopped keeping track years ago."I got tired of keeping tally," she said.Hoping to collect on some of these unpaid tickets, town officials are launching a 30-day amnesty program.

Sloppiness seems to be infectious within the offices of Howard County government these days.First, county officials were unable to produce data to justify their request to spend an additional $510,000 to upgrade a maximum-security wing of the Howard County detention center, even though the jail's director insists that he is having to house ever more violent offenders.And now officials sheepishly concede that over a period of five years, some 2,000 parking tickets have gone unaccounted for.County officials say they have no idea what happened to the tickets, although their fervent hope is that they were all merely voided by police officers without being recorded properly.

The City Council passed a parking amnesty bill last night that will give thousands of people with overdue parking tickets a chance to pay up without fines or other penalties. Mayor Martin O'Malley will select two days during which people with old tickets can stand in the cashier's line at the Abel Woman Municipal Building at 200 N. Holliday St. The members voted 15-0 to approve the amnesty last night after the bill's sponsor, Council Vice President Stephanie C. Rawlings Blake, said it would give drivers with unpaid tickets a narrow window of opportunity to pay before the city imposes steeper fines Sept.

Baltimore City Councilwoman Paula Johnson Branch, who amassed nine unpaid parking tickets in the past three months, was stranded at City Hall yesterday afternoon when her illegally parked car was booted by parking officials.Ms. Branch, who represents the 2nd District and heads a council committee that deals with parking issues, owes the city $304 in unpaid tickets, including the $24 boot fee.The boot, a metal device placed on a tire, immobilizes a car until the owner pays the outstanding tickets.

Few things get the blood boiling like double parking. You roll down the street and there is some vehicle with its tail lights flashing, blocking your way. You slam on the brakes and mutter to yourself, "Why doesn't that bozo park around the corner?" That presumes there is space around the corner, which is often not the case in crowded city neighborhoods. Or it overlooks the fact that the driver is unloading the kids, the groceries or grandma in front of his or her home, instances in which maneuvering to get the shortest distance to the front door matters.