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From the Monona PD:
PRESS RELEASE
MONONA POLICE DEPARTMENT
9 December 2008
1:52 pm
The snow emergency remains in effect until noon, 10 December 2008. Monona officers will be ticketing vehicles parked on Monona streets.
Beginning around 7:00 pm this evening, we will begin towing vehicles that are parked on any Monona street.
It is essential to have the roadways clear so that Public Works personnel can clear streets during the early morning hours.
Frank K. Fenton
Operations Lt
Monona PD
Until the conclusion of the snow emergency, citizens should be advised that they may park their vehicles in any Monona City Park parking lot.
Yes, well, thanks for the warning - too late for me and a few others. I have lived here for nearly 20 years, and never, ever had a ticket for parking on the street, during the day, in snow storm. We had customer cars parked on the street today as we were scrambling to clear the lot, get the work all done which is ten times harder in a snow storm, etc., and a cop ticketed them, without even asking us to move them. Fine. It's the law, and we violated it, but for crying out loud, how about some warning or publicity that the enforcement is changing!? And now you're gong to tow cars tonight? Has that ever been done before? Are you trying to create a public relations problem? Geez.
ReplyDeleteWhat can I say? I posted the message as soon as I got it.
ReplyDeleteWe amended the ordinance early this year, I think. I posted about it a few days ago.
I don't administer the laws, OK? Call the PD or the Mayor or contest the ticket or all three.
Right. So they can not respond the same way they did not respond to the email I sent last week with the suggestion that they do some sort of informational campaign before they start enforcing speed limits in a new way. How ironic. I guess you can't make money if you warn the public you are changing things before you start writing tickets?
ReplyDeleteYou're an alder. I am complaing to you. How difficult would it have been to give warning tickets during the first snow storm? Print up some orange slips and stick them under the wipers. Just like a ticket, but faster. Or better yet, when the owner of a business smiles and waves at you, you roll down the window and say "Hey, are those your customer's cars? I need them moved or I will have to ticket at them."
The hubby did go to the police department yesterday. I think his level of disgust was pretty clear. This is the same police department that, earlier this year, came into our business to threatend us with enforcement of an ordinance that, it turns out, does not exist.
In all frankness, I was aware of the change-it was in the herald and discussed at a public meeting.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, parking on the street doing a snowstorm has been a problem for a long time.
MF,
ReplyDeleteI believe we have talked before about the importance of elected officials not micromanaging the way staff carries out their duties. You really think that I, as one alder of six, should pick up the phone and tell the police chief how to go about enforcing the parking laws?
Yes, I am an alder and you are complaining to me, but are you complaining to the other alders (the ones who don't have a blog where they posted a message about a snow emergency at the mayor's request)?
And yes, this new ordinance was covered in the Herlad's August 6, 2008 issue.
http://herald-independent.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=252&SectionID=2&SubSectionID=2&S=1
A few other alders read this, and honestly, Doug, we've had so many issues with city hall this year, it's getting embarrassing to say anything at all. Like I'm some busybody who has nothing better to do than whine at the city. But honestly, from the brouhaha over the parking lot to not getting a call back from public works when we were within inches of being flooded in the middle of the night because the road contractor failed to adequately secure the storm drains to having vehicles with windows rolled down on a hot day filled with lake water by the sod watering crew and everything else in between, our frustration level is pretty high. It's hard to fight the inevitable paranoia.
ReplyDeleteFurther, setting out expectations for effective communications by city staff is not micro-managing. And that's the problem here and with other issues we had with city hall this year during the construction. Judging by the number of cars I noted parked on our city streets yesterday, the message had not gotten out to many people. People do not like getting parking tickets and will generally comply with the rules if they are aware of them. This was a change, and it is not at all unusual for PDs to give out warnings at first when enforcing a new ordinance. Writing tickets at the very first chance is not good public relations. period. And by the way, I don't have a problem with the ordinance itself, but with the implementation. It seems that if the PD can warn us that they will begin enforcing an ordinance that doesn't exist, they could extend the same courtesy when they intend to enforce an ordinance that actually does exist. The council passed the ordinance, and it is certainly in the purview of the council to pay attention to implementation strategies.
Doug:
ReplyDeleteI have to chime in here and agree w/ MF. Communication by the city -- in some regards -- is incredibly poor. It's not as if, you know, the snow season came upon us all of the sudden. December's been on the calender for a whole year! It's Wisconsin; it snows! Couldn't the police dept. have:
-- Submitted a notice to the local paper, a month or so ago, telling folks a new snow ordinance enforcement was in place and would be enforced?
-- Run a scroll along the cable channel, to let folks know about enforcement, with the (predicted) onset of a snowstorm?
-- Think of a few other non-traditional channels -- email perhaps? -- other than just a press release from the cop shop?
I'd like to think this is an isolated incident with the police, but summer roadwork and the subsequent interruptions of water service --given with little or no notice to affected residents -- suggest it's a more systemmatic problem, and one that needs some coordination from the day-to-day management, with the clear expectation from the governing body that effective communication must be an essential part of how the city operates.
Ironically, the city itself in some ways is doing a very good job of this. I note, with considerable joy, that both the library and the city recreation department are doing wonderful things in how they communicate with constituencies. Their use of email, in particular, is on the cutting edge of how local units of government ought to communicate. Maybe the police and public works department/engineering office could learn a thing or two from them.
I noticed far fewer cars on the streets on Tuesday, but I did see areas where several cars were in a row.
ReplyDeleteI think many of these cars belonged to the same families, so it makes sense if they didn't know to move one car, they wouldn't know to move several cars.
I think the City must have made an honest effort to notify residents about the sNOw parking change to explain the reduction in parked cars I saw. It is possible that people just felt like helping plows, but I doubt it.
I also agree that warnings on the first instance are a good practice, butI also doubt warnings work as well as tickets. If the police wanted less work in the future, they probably made the right choice.