O brother – here we go again. Seem the Indy mayor found that the parking department wasn’t collecting about $1mm a year in past due fines so his solution to the $30MM shortfall in the city’s budget is to collect half of that money. Oh yes, and lay off 400 people and threaten to reduce the size of the fire and police department. Read all about it here:
My guess is that he has already reduced the libraries, closed parks, fired nurses, and the like. I wonder if it occurred to him to get rid of every other bureaucrat in City Hall. Oh, sorry, I don’t know anything about Indy, but if its like every other major city in the US, its offices are filled with people who cannot be fired and who aren’t motivated to produce.
So we reach out to find places to get more money, and why not parking. Rather than have the parking fees and fines support the things that people who park use (streets, sidewalks, lighting, streetscapes, and the like), we will take the money and pour it down a black hole somewhere never to be seen again.
I would think that the half mil could be used to fill pot holes or cracked sidewalks, or put in a bench or street light or two. How about trimming those trees that need it so badly on my street —
JVH