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Opening Arguments

A fine problem

This sounds like a good idea:

Do you have a stack of old parking tickets lying around your home? Perhaps collecting dust and overdue fines.

How would you like to pay those tickets without paying any of the late penalties that come with them?

That's what Fort Wayne City Clerk Sandy Kennedy is proposing.

Under her proposal, people could pay their old parking tickets from January 20th through January 30th, and their late fees would be waived.

This might not be as tempting as the governor's tax-penalty amnesty plan, which brought in millions of dollars, because people aren't as anxious to get rid of overdue parking tickets as they are overdue taxes. But it's worth a try for the same reason the governor's plan was, because whatever it brings in is money the city wouldn't otherwise get.

Part of the problem now, I think, is the way the fines are set up. I think there's a penalty in the first month one is overdue, but nothing after that. So if you're a month late or two years late, you'd pay the same amount. There's no incentive to hurry up and pay the thing.

Maybe they should consider a different fine structure. How about a 1-cent fine? If it isn't paid in the first week, double it. Keep doubling it every week it isn't paid up to a mzixmum of, oh, 30 weeks. That seems reasonable, doesn't it?

Comments

Doug
Tue, 01/06/2009 - 11:41am

Or you could seize their cars and sell them if they won't pay their damn bills. (Don't mind me - I'm in debt collection mode at the moment.)

Bob G.
Tue, 01/06/2009 - 4:00pm

I like your idea, Doug...really, but you always have to hearken back to what Bill Cosby once said about those nasty old traffic tickets...
"They're like SAVINGS BONDS...the LONGER you KEEP them, the MORE they MATURE".

Sound advice from the 60s (for once).

;)

Doug
Tue, 01/06/2009 - 5:51pm

So that's where I got that. For the longest time I have half-remembered a comedy bit about what a great investment speeding tickets are because of how fast they mature. It must've been the Cosby routine.

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