Catch 22 Parking Situation Results in Tense Standoff and Frustration Last Night

A reader reports:

“So on Tuesday from 7am – 7pm there is street cleaning on the north side of Euclid Street between 13th and 14th streets. So on Tuesday by 7am, residents in zone 1 on that street must move their cars from the north side of the street to the south side; where it is zoned and acceptable to park only on Tuesday from 7am to 7pm.

When residents get home from work, they must move their cars back to the north side of the street at 7pm. Here’s where it gets tricky and the altercation occurred. To move your car right as the stroke of 7pm happens is near impossible, so residents usually move their cars between 6:30pm and 7pm. Yesterday my neighbor moved his car around 6:45, and there was a parking enforcement guy who begun giving tickets. I pointed this out to my neighbor as I had just gotten hope from work myself. The parking enforcement guy (real jerk about it), told him to move his car back to the south side quickly and keep it there till right at 7pm or he would give him a ticket. There was also another neighbor that had parked his car but was already inside so I had to call him to race down before the parking enforcement gave him a ticket. In the meantime, I stood in front of his license plate to block parking enforcement from taking a picture of the back or the front license plate, as they are required to do to issue the ticket; this was all occurring at 6:50pm, 10 minutes before parking is acceptable on the north side of the street.

The parking enforcement gentlemen became aggressive and yelled at me to move, which I refused. He took my picture; which is when I begun taking his; he even stepped out of his car to “flex his abusive power” over the residents of Euclid Street. After he left, post 7pm, he called the police and showed up with them, I was still standing outside with my neighbors, around 10 minutes later. The police did nothing but I was reprimanded for interfering with city government procedures, they say it could be considered assault and local government and firefighters are protected under this. I understand but at the same time, it just seems amoral to ticket like this.

All in all, it seems like a flawed system. How can you allow for no grace period? It seems like a racket to me, to come along and make people sit in their cars to move them right at 7pm would be chaos. It seems like just another way for the city to get money from ridiculously strict parking enforcement.”