How is a No Parking Sign Supposed to Be Appropriately Posted

[That Guy]

I'm sure that in your (relatively small, IIRC) city/county, the PD handles all aspects of parking ticketing. The problem Feng had is in outsourcing everything after the issuance of the citation to a for-profit private entity that has EVERY incentive to squeeze $$$ out of this, which can naturally lead to picking and choosing "favorable" examiners as well as pressure on these examiners to compromise their supposed independence.

You have to admit though that Feng's arguments and comparisons are way off... Comparing a "judge or an CPA or a doctor" (heck, why not add financial advisers and funeral directors to the mix) to "parking ticket reviewers is way too overdramatic. Ticket reviewers never took an oath to uphold anything nor do they have a fiduciary duty to maintain a certain standard!

I'm not sure what the implication is here or what in Feng's opinion would resolve the "problem". If he's suggesting that these municipalities should employ some sort of *review board* to review the people who review the disputed citations, then the answer is obviously "no"; at least not in this current environment of government downsizing, and where cities, counties and some states are on the verge of bankruptcy.

Fact on the matter is, there is a mechanism by which those results are reviewed... And Feng went though it, AND PREVAILED!!! Now, would you rather have this *review board* who was hired by the same entity (the municipality) that directly benefits from upholding these citations, or would you rather take the matter up before a neutral court where the outcome is decided by a fully trained JUDGE based on its merit?

Point is, you are not the first one to ever be wronged by parking enforcement, and you certainly won't be the last!
Similarly, you are not the first one to take the matter through all of its appeal stages and prevail and you certainly are going to be the last!

Get over it, move on... There is plenty in this world that you can expend all this time, effort and energy onto and you can bet that the results can be much more rewarding than the simple reverberation of an "Ahuh, I was right and they were wrong!!!"

[Feng]

Ticket reviewers never took an oath to uphold anything nor do they have a fiduciary duty to maintain a certain standard!

I think that's exactly the problem. As I said, these people are not accountable to anyone. Do we really want these people to review traffic cases? To me that's a waste of resources.

If he's suggesting that these municipalities should employ some sort of *review board* to review the people who review the disputed citations, then the answer is obviously "no"; at least not in this current environment of government downsizing, and where cities, counties and some states are on the verge of bankruptcy.

Whether the cities have the money to do the right thing certainly is another matter. Perhaps we should get rid of these initial review/admin hearing processes so that the cities can save the money in hiring these reviewers and examiners. Or maybe we should also close the courts to save money? And everyone who gets a ticket has to pay - just because the cities are on the verge of bankruptcy?

Fact on the matter is, there is a mechanism by which those results are reviewed... And Feng went though it, AND PREVAILED!!!

There is a mechanism and I agree that it kind of worked. But can it be better? I think so. 1. If the reviewer/examiner did their job, the court did not need to be convened. And I guess one legislative intent is to lessen the court's workload. 2. The city can save $25 filing fee if the ticket was rightfully dismissed before it went to court. 3. I can certainly save time and money. 4. If the admin hearing is abolished, the city can save $85 (or whatever) it pays Data Ticket. Anyway that $85 should be used to do some productive thing, either a real hearing or something else. To sum up, I think there is a bunch of social cost wasted here.

Now, would you rather have this *review board* who was hired by the same entity (the municipality) that directly benefits from upholding these citations, or would you rather take the matter up before a neutral court where the outcome is decided by a fully trained JUDGE based on its merit?

There are many ways that can potentially improve the process. I may make a proposal to the legislators if opportunities present themselves one day. But this thread does not seem to be a good place for that. I exposed the problem, anyone interested can ponder on it.

Get over it, move on... There is plenty in this world that you can expend all this time, effort and energy onto and you can bet that the results can be much more rewarding than the simple reverberation of an "Ahuh, I was right and they were wrong!!!"

Indeed there are plenty in this world that one can expend one's time. Some choose to be here to help others deal with their parking tickets and share their knowledge and experience with others. I may have gloated a little bit but I think I have shared some useful information with others. (Of course I respect one's opinion if one feels that all I shared was just my gloat.) BTW there are instances of people in this forum sometimes making condescending remarks or even verbally abusing others (don't ask me for examples, please. I don't want to start a "discussion" on that.) Those really dwarf my "Ahuh, I was right and they were wrong!!!"

I am not familiar with any counties that outsource these reviews, but I suppose there are some.

If one wants to see bias, one will see it.

One can refer to some previous posts in this thread for some links to see names of some Calif cities that outsource. Data Ticket is the "industry leader" as someone put it. I suspect more and more cities would outsource.
I wish I could tell the judge (or examiner) that "If one wants to see guilt, one will see it" and then the judge would sympathetically dismiss the charge.

[That Guy]

Do we really want these people to review traffic cases? .

Parking tickets are a different animal that "traffic cases". IN fact, "these people" don't review traffic cases (as in moving violations) simply because traffic matters (moving violations) are, more often than not, filed as public offenses and are treated as criminal matters... So they are adjudicated bby "judicial officers" where as parking citations are civil matters and the citing authority can decide how to handle them as long as their methods are not in violation of any law.

To me that's a waste of resources.

OK, thanks for clarifying... Again!

Whether the cities have the money to do the right thing certainly is another matter. Perhaps we should get rid of these initial review/admin hearing processes so that the cities can save the money in hiring these reviewers and examiners. Or maybe we should also close the courts to save money? And everyone who gets a ticket has to pay - just because the cities are on the verge of bankruptcy?

You obviously missed my point here. YOU are the one who is suggesting that these reviewers aren't suubjected to enough scrutiny whether before or after being hired. In my comment, I am saying that if you're expecting the city of Costa Mesa to add in yet another level of checks and balances where the results of these reviews or the reviewers themselves are monitored regularly, then your expectations are too high and it will likely be a long time before any city will move in that direction. So if this was your attempt at suggesting that my comment that "the city will reject your idea" is equal to us closing the courts, then your attempt at being sarcastic failed miserably!

Either way, and like it or not, budgetary issues WILL have a huge impact on any such decision and are usually a major consideration in the process to approve or reject any new propositions.

There is a mechanism and I agree that it kind of worked.

Great... Problem solved. The system works... Now, you want to make it better, then move forward, get a petition started, get it signed, go to Costa Mesa City Council meetings, tell your story, make your voice heard, contact the state legislature and let them know that it is your opinion that the vehicle code needs to be amended because you're not happy with it!
Instead, here is what you're doing:

I may make a proposal to the legislators if opportunities present themselves one day. But this thread does not seem to be a good place for that. I exposed the problem, anyone interested can ponder on it.

... Complaining that the system sucks, that the reviewers have no one to answer to, that the cities can save money, and the courts need not be burdened with parking cases,.... All while you've already decided (and I quote): "I may make a proposal to the legislators if opportunities present themselves one day" (meaning as soon as you get yourt refund check, the matter is forgotten), might suggest that you're not so convinced that you had a "legit" claim (after all, case did not get dismissed on merit, it simply got dismissed because the other party did not appear) or that deep inside, you agree that you suggestions aren't as, ... uhm... let us say "practical".

You did not "expose the problem" (or "a problem" for that matter... It is a known fact that contesting a parking citation, regardless of how legitimate or not it may be, is typically a losing proposition... And that more often than not, and unless you take it all the way to court, you might as well give up! I've known that for years and yet I've never contested a parking citation

Indeed there are plenty in this world that one can expend one's time.

Good, then find a new one... You're beating a dead horse here... Or you can continue to waste your time. Your choice!

Some choose to be here to help others deal with their parking tickets and share their knowledge and experience with others.

OK, so there's the "Entitlement" part...

You got what you am here for, right? Why include that in what seems to be a complaint?

I may have gloated a little bit but I think I have shared some useful information with others.

There's the "Set-Up" part...

Yet you didn't have much to gloat about in your other thread: Can I Present My Evidence Directly to the Judge Without Cross-Examining the Officer, or did you? And you're obviously still holding a grudge simply because I wouldn't agree with you on your silly and meaningless arguments there...

[U]BTW there are instances of people in this forum sometimes making condescending remarks or even verbally abusing others (don't ask me for examples, please. I don't want to start a "discussion" on that.) Those really dwarf my "Ahuh, I was right and they were wrong!!!"

And there's "the jab"...

So you don't want to give examples, you don't say who you're referring to... What is your point? Is this your way of "exposing another problem"?

Dude, seriously, get over yourself.

• The fact that the "problem" you exposed is, as far as anyone can tell, limited to one in thousands of citations, issued by parking enforcement for one of hundreds of cities in this state. It simply makes it an "isolated incident" and nothing more!
• The fact that you prevailed by taking your case to the court level dos not imply that every case that gets there gets dismissed.
• The fact that you chose to pursue it to that level does not mean that everyone should do the same, would go through the hassle or could afford to spend as much time chasing after $100. So if it happens that someone comes across this thread and find value in the info you provided, then great for them... But with your one contribution in one thread does not make you any better than anyone here and regardless of the type of remarks they make towards others.
• The fact that you won your appeal is not indicative of any "wrongdoing" on behalf of the issuing parking enforcement agent/officer, that department, the city of Costa Mesa or Data Ticket for that matter. Case got dismissed simply because they opted not to appear.
• The fact that you can speculate that the case was "perhaps" dismissed because "the judge read the file in advance and already knew the ticket does not hold up", does not necessarily make it so! If in reality, he had done that, as in :decided the case BEFORE hearing from BOTH parties, then I say he doesn't belong on that bench!!! You on the other hand, and s long as the outcome is in your favor, then it would be perfectly fine with you. Perhaps he didn't read the file, had made no decision whatsoever, was waiting to hear from you and the other party and when they did not show up, he did the legally proper thing to minimize any waste of judicial resources by dismissing the case.
• The fact that you can claim that "by not showing up, Data Ticket certainly avoided humiliation by being scolded by the judge for their incompetence, greed and waste of judicial resources", does not make that the only reason; maybe they opted not to show up simply because it makes very little business sense for one employee to take a few hours off (again) chasing after $100!
• The fact that you can sit on your perch pointing fingers, pretending and criticizing to the point where you had to come back and humble yourself would imply that maybe you should have stopped a while back... Maybe right after the "I won." part.... Its not too late!!!

[quirkyquark]

^^^ re only the wrongdoing part, TG: if you read the thread you will see that the parking violation was wrong on the merits. OP got a map AND a letter from the city traffic engineer stating that the location he was cited at has no resident-only parking restrictions (which was his alleged violation!)

Rather than some grand agenda of parking ticket reform, I think Fengs energy may be better directed simply towards making sure that the city and PD of Costa Mesa are aware of this issue, and if this is a "policy", that it's changed.

For that matter, assuming it's been less than 6'months from the date of the citation, if Feng is as aggrieved as he sounds, and has the time, he may well want to make a small claims action against the city.

[That Guy]

^^^ re only the wrongdoing part, TG: if you read the thread you will see that the parking violation was wrong on the merits. OP got a map AND a letter from the city traffic engineer stating that the location he was cited at has no resident-only parking restrictions (which was his alleged violation!)

As always, thank you QQ. This time, for further proving my point.

So we know that the citation was "wrongfully" issued...

Question: So by "wrongdoing", do you mean the citing agent wrongfully and (more importantly) intentionally issued that citation?

Answer: We don't know. While Feng did establish that the citation was incorrectly issued, he's presented no proof of any malfeasance or bad intent. So while it is possible that he gets a $X.xx kick back for every citation, then again, maybe it simply could have been an honest mistake...

Either way, somebody lost focus here, at some point in time. Simply because the so called "problem" that was exposed here has nothing to do with the citing agents...

All he's done so far is "exposed" the process by which citations are "reviewed" but he's done NOTHING to address the real problem which begins with the person(s) issuing those citations! If Feng would have his way, Data Ticket will be put out of business, ticket reviewers will get automatic transfers to neighboring Burger King and McDonald's as burger flippers and fry masters (because according to him, that is ALL they are qualified to do), all while those "rogue" citing agents are still employed by the city, they're still out there "wrongfully" issuing citations (AND they may start getting free/discounted lunches from all the ex-Data Ticket employees)...

Rather than some grand agenda of parking ticket reform, I think Fengs energy may be better directed simply towards making sure that the city and PD of Costa Mesa are aware of this issue, and if this is a "policy", that it's changed.

Less effort, (hopefully) better impact!

According to the Costa Mesa OPERATING AND CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT BUDGET FISCAL YEAR 2011-2012, revenue from Parking citations amounts to less that 1% (Page 18: shows $999,009 in revenue for FY 2008/09 VERSUS $107,378,887 in TOTAL revenue for same FY = 0.9%).

So my conclusions are:

1) Costa Mesa is not the typical Municipal Authority that is out to fleece the public and they could care less about "revenue from parking citations. Heck they just recently and VOLUNTARILY shut down their Red Light Camera program)!

2) I'll take back my suggestion to speak to the City Council at their meetings...


When the City gets this award to hang in its reception area, you're not going to make a great impression walking in there making a fuss about "waste of resources", "misappropriation of funds" and over payments to subcontractors (if Data Ticket wants to pay its employees $85 to sit on their asses then that's their business). So if you choose to contact the City don't do it in a public forum, I'd suggest a private letter!

For that matter, assuming it's been less than 6'months from the date of the citation, if Feng is as aggrieved as he sounds, and has the time, he may well want to make a small claims action against the city.

I'm not sure where the 6 months period would fit into that equation, however, and once he receives a refund for his citation, he's been indemnified. He has very little, if any, quantifiable damages and he's owed nothing for his time and effort!