To the editor: Moral of this story: Governments should not rely on their own incompetence, inefficiencies and stubbornness as a revenue stream to bilk us, the taxpayers (“He did everything right. His Los Angeles parking fine kept growing anyway,” April 13).
What happened to Paul Cook and his parking ticket pretty much exactly happened to me with the city of Santa Monica.
Contesting wrongful assessments like these is difficult or impossible when you hold a full-time job. But city governments bank on our lack of time.
Rather than dismiss our claims, parking enforcement agencies should budget money and manpower to check the veracity of our assertions, which are usually not made-up. Instead, they waste court and administrative resources and, worst of all, our valuable time to resolve what could easily be fixed — by them.
Barely painted curbs, non-functioning parking meters and neglected or misplaced parking signs are obvious. Fix ’em.
Richard Rothschild, Santa Monica