New Low

I am one of many in my neighborhood who today received a holiday gift in form of parking tickets from the City of Santa Barbara. I am a 33-year resident of the Samarkand neighborhood, and I am aware of and abide by the relatively new decree mandating we vacate our parking twice a week to facilitate street sweeping. In short, it has been stated policy that streetsweeping will not be in effect during holidays and wet weather. This past winter, on a very rainy morning, I was issued a ticket when the gutters were still running wet. I submitted a request for rescindment of that ticket but I was denied.

Today is Labor Day, a national and state and citywide holiday. If you look on the official Santa Barbara website / calendar page you will see that it is stated as a city holiday. Now there appears to be a separate streetsweeping holiday schedule that we are somehow expected to monitor.

At shortly after 9 a.m. this morning I noticed a lot of my neighbors scrambling either to try and remove their cars in time or to convey their disapproval to the meter maid who preceeds the sweeping truck. I was too late, as were many of my immediate neighbors. Later this morning, as I was driving through the ‘hood, I noticed an inordinate number of additional victims who also received tickets due to the non-expectation of being ticketed on Labor Day. Simply put, this is not right.

This city like most is in dire need of revenue, that I understand. What is not clear is how this city can issue tickets based on ambiguous policy in a futile attempt to mend the problem!