Prug One

When I was unemployed earlier this year I spent a shitpile of money on streetcleaning violations. On Thursday and Friday mornings en mi barrio, either side of the street is restricted from 10-12 for street cleaning. The fine is somewhere between 50 and 60 samoleans -- a lot when you're unemployed. Now ultimately this is my own fault, I never had proper reminders in place, but it's not like the city was fining me for keeping the streets filthy. Street cleaning, as I imagine most of you know is set up with the assumption that people will violate, be fined, and create revenue for the city. (The most startling example of this type of practice was the removal of a traffic camera at a stop light because it wasn't generating enough revenue to justify its presence -- in other words, deterrence was not a factor in determining its worth. I'll try to find a link to the article from awhile back.)

Anyway, recently the meter hours have been lengthened such that one must plug the meter in certain neighborhoods until 2000h as opposed to 1800h. LAist has had some great coverage lately of the issue and I encourage reading this piece about the inconsistent updating of signage (god I fucking hate the word signage. also calling pamphlets literature. come to think of it, calling anything literature justifies a beat down.)

I understand the city desperately needs funds, and this is a somewhat creative way of generating them. Also, as someone who consistently votes for people who would raise my taxes, maybe I should intentionally get tickets (or retroactively rationalize my having received the ones I do have). Still there's something about this that leaves a really bad taste in my mouth. I'm not sure I share LAist and other citizen's frustration and passion over the issue, but I'm trying to....

Anyway, be on the lookout, read the signs, and for fuck's sake use your coño iPhone to remind you to move your car and/or prug da meetah.

====UPDATE====

Here's some info from LAist about the race for city controller, the office that could put an end to some of this parking madness.