Why not warn us when parking laws change?

Editor,

I am frustrated by the permit parking surrounding the University for two reasons.

First, I think it is questionable that we all pay for public roads through our taxes, but some people get special access to those roads through the permit process, while others are excluded. Second, in my experience, there is no reasonable way to pay a parking citation.

Most people are attracted to University neighborhoods because of the benefits they provide, such as convenience, shopping, entertainment and greater home values. However, like many things in life, there are trade-offs, and in this case living near the University dictates higher concentrations of people and greater traffic congestion. Thus, it seems unfair the city provides these residents special parking privileges and denies them to the rest of us while forcing all of us to pay not only for those roads and sidewalks, but the ticketing of them as well.

In addition to this misuse of our tax dollars and the preference it shows to a small subset of Albuquerque’s tax base, is the issue that there is no reasonable way to pay a parking citation. To better illustrate my point, I’d like to recount my personal experience that began with a parking citation on Wednesday. I am a UNM employee who parks once a week in a neighborhood near north campus. Parking in that same spot for more than a year has made it a habit for me, and the thought of checking to see if there is a new sign up the block didn’t occur to me.

Thus, I thought it was a mistake when I found a parking ticket on my car. To address this, I called the officer, who informed me the area had become permit-parking only three weeks prior to my ticket. I decided that paying the $20 would be easier than taking part of a day off from work to go to court and suggest that helping a citizen to know the rules before punishing them for breaking them might be an appropriate action.

However, when I attempted to pay my ticket the next morning, I learned that citations must be paid within five days (including weekends) or they double, and that the only means of paying a citation are in person or by mail. This means that the $20 ticket I received Wednesday afternoon becomes a $40 ticket if it is not in the hands of the parking authority by Monday, which eliminates mailing the fine and leaves me with the option of either paying twice the citation value or taking part of a day off to go to court and pay the fine.

This whole scenario seems backwards. First, all taxpayers must subsidize the parking desires of a few people who live in one of the best and most expensive parts of the city. Then, we have to pay for the policing of those policies. Next, we have parking officers who don’t show the courtesy of providing a warning in the case of a new policy change. And finally, there is a timeline that is unrealistic and forces working individuals to take off work to pay a fine.

Jarrett Hines-Kay
UNM staff member