Parking Enforcement in NorthWest Carrollton
Please be advised that the 2nd District is ticketing parking violations.
Please see the President’s response to a resident of NorthWest Carrollton who, almost, got a ticket this AM for parking facing the wrong direction.
Sent: Friday, December 21, 2007 12:15 PM
Subject: Re: how to lose members and infuriate people
(Name removed),
I can totally appreciate that almost getting a ticket at the holiday season is a bad experience. I’m very glad the policeman backed off when you said you’d move the car.
I’d like to give you a bit more background on NWC efforts.
We started asking the asking the police and city to enforce parking and speeding laws a year about a year ago. Working with the police to get them into the neighborhood is a very good thing. The second district didn’t know where we were in January 2006. Today the cop who was writing tickets knew the neighborhood. While this still doesn’t make almost getting a ticket fun, it is an improvement. We want the police to know who we are and where we are and not just when people are getting robbed or shot or stabbed.
Speeding on Pritchard is bad, but nothing compared to what happens during the school year on Apricot. We’ve asked for and gotten police ticketing folks for speeding in our neighborhood. Not as often as we’d like but they have responded. We’ll continue to ask for speeding enforcement throughout the neighborhood.
The parking issue has many layers.
One layer is associated with Mr. Russell, the neighborhood towtruck driver who parks abandoned cars all over the neighborhood and who the 2nd district just helped us get convicted last week. We have repeatedly asked for parking enforcement in our year long fight to get Mr. Russell to stop trashing the neighborhood.
Another layer is associated with our effort to plant trees in the neighborhood. People who park on the green space between the sidewalk and the street endanger our tree planting efforts. People who park on the sidewalk make pedestrians park walk in the street and this affects the walkabilty of the neighborhood and is not good either. Last weekend we planted 28 trees in NWC. We specifically and recently asked the 2nd district about parking enforcement because Mr. Russell was parking his tow truck right where a tree was slated to be planted.
One of the things I personally did throughout 2006 and 2007 was to place notices on cars that were parked illegally. I wanted to make sure that folks who lived in the neighborhood knew when they were parking illegally so that they could adjust their parking habits and avoid getting a ticket . You can ask (name removed) next door, I know I placed one on his car, specifically because he was parked facing the wrong direction. I don’t remember if I ever placed a notice on your car. I did this through out the summer & fall as often as I could to try and avoid just what happened to you today. We also talked about parking enforcement at our neighborhood meetings.
In order to make our neighborhood safe and clean and walkable and livable we need to work with the police as much as possible. It has taken almost a year to get parking enforcement. We expected it would take this long. Unfortunately we can not tell the police to selectively enforce parking ordinances. When they come into the neighborhood to write parking tickets all violations are fair game.
Again, I am very glad that the police did not write you a ticket and allowed you to move your car. I hope that this gives you a better understanding of our efforts and I hope that this understanding will help us not lose you as a member. I’m sorry you were infuriated. I’m home today working on house cleaning and repairs. If you’d like to come down and talk to me about this or any other concerns, I’d welcome a visit.
Jenel Hazlett
Sent: Dec 21, 2007 10:25 AM
Subject: how to lose members and infuriate people
So, this morning I almost got a ticket for parking against traffic in front of my own house. Luckily the policemen backed off when we said we’d move the car. He was very quick to apologize and point the blame at our NWC for hounding his sergeant to address this PROBLEM. Maybe you’d like to change your focus to speeding. We park the car in the street, NOT our driveway to slow the cars down.
If we had gotten the ticket you can bet that if NWC ever asked me for money again, I would say no. And the week before Christmas! I swear this is not the time to be adding $20 to people’s budget.
I can understand that you don’t like cars parked the wrong way. My personal pet peeve is cars that block the sidewalk. However, I think it would be appropriate to WARN members via email that this is a hot item for you so that we can be aware. Honestly!!! This is not the way to build neighborhood unity!!!!
December 21st, 2007 at 2:44 pm
From: Name Removed
Subject: RE: how to lose members and infuriate people
Date: Dec 21, 2007 12:21 PM
Thank you for the explanation.
I do wish you would email these things and the minutes from the meetings. I just cannot come to a meeting on a Saturday afternoon.
I do remember the flyers. We were annoyed by those also- mostly because they did not come with such a thorough explanation so it’s an easy assumption that someone has too much time on the their hands and is being deliberately provocative.
The message you just wrote would be a great thing to send out to the mailing list that you used when asking for help planting the trees.
Attendance at the meeting should not be a requirement to being informed about neighborhood issues.
December 21st, 2007 at 3:02 pm
Everyone in the neighborhood needs to understand that they do not live in a bubble. I have had instances where neighbors have left cars parked in front of my house for months without moving them, or have blocked my driveway. Obeying the parking rules in the neighborhood shows respect, not only for yourself, but for those that share lot lines with you. Parking illegally seems like a small thing unless you are the one being adversley affected by it. Let’s all try to be considerate, and lte’s obey the laws that are, in the end, there to benefit all of us.
December 21st, 2007 at 3:08 pm
Sent: Friday, December 21, 2007 12:51 PM
Name Removed,
We do our best to keep folks informed. The notices were one simple easy way I had to try to get the word out above and beyond neighborhood meetings. I did this in the morning or evenings before work and other time I saw a parking violation that could result in a ticket. There is a delicate balance between too much information (stop bothering me) and not enough (why didn’t you tell me) and the notices were the only way I had to try and live on the edge of that balance. I’m sorry you saw the notices as a negative thing rather than a positive informative thing.
I have placed a notice on the blog http://www.northwestcarrollton.com about parking enforcement. We will continue to do what we can to keep folks informed on neighborhood issues and activities. The blog is just another tool in the tool box.
Jenel
Sent: Dec 21, 2007 12:53 PM
Thanks
I’ll bookmark the blog and check it regularly.
Date: Dec 21, 2007 12:58 PM
Name Removed,
We will be placing the minutes of the meetings on the blog as well.
Happy Holidays,
Jenel
December 21st, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Additional Background regarding Parking Enforcement
Sent: Dec 7, 2007 1:53 PM
Subject: PARKING VIOLATIONS - Trees and Mr. Russell and NorthWest Carrollton
Debi/ Captain Kirk/Officer Eddington:
Please see the note below.
We would like to have Officer Eddington have a talk with to Mr Russell about not parking on the grass. To park this way is ILLEGAL. Unfortunately Mr. Russell is not the only one commiting this crime. The NOPD officers who stay in the Trailer (8100 block of Pritchard) behind the large house at Carrollton & Pritchard also frequently park their cars solidly on the grass between the sidewalk and the street. Many other people do this as well. It wrecks the grass and it wrecks the sidewalks, it causes pedestrians to have to walk in the street. Cars also park illegally, facing the wrong direction. Is there any way that Officer Eddington could give parking tickets to illegally parked vehicles? We have repeatedly warned our neighbors that about illegal parking issues so the tickets will be for those folks who have ignored our (bright orange) gentle reminders.
We will be planting trees this Saturday in NorthWest Carrollton with Hike for KaTREEna. We need your help to safeguard the trees and our investment in quality of life for the folks of NorthWest Carrollton.
Did you know that Trees as said to help reduce crime? See link below on a Policeman in NY’s experience
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-7993961.html
See this link for the academic data
http://www1.br.cc.va.us/murray/research/cpted/trees-crime.pdf
Please do what you can to help protect the landscaping and the trees by enforcing the parking ordinance as part of the Quality of Life program. All the tools must work together.
Thanks, Jenel Hazlett NorthWest Carrollton
December 21st, 2007 at 4:23 pm
You know we got one of those pesky Illegal Parking Notices. It irritated me too. But we did turn the car around. I guess I need to be grateful that I was irritated. Better to be irritated than ticketed. Thanks for letting us know this was coming.
December 21st, 2007 at 5:01 pm
They got a notice and assumed it was someone with too much time on their hands!!!?????
In Post Katrina New Orleans…. someone with too much time on their hands?!!!!!
Gimme a break!
December 22nd, 2007 at 9:30 am
Obeying the traffic and parking regulations in your neighborhood is the first step in making your neighborhood a first-class neighborhood. The same rings true for the posting of illegal signs on right-of-ways and telephone poles, which is a personal pet peeve of mine and one that I help eradicate in my neighborhood on a daily basis. If you want outsiders to show respect for your neighborhood, you need to first show that you respect it yourself.
JS
December 22nd, 2007 at 11:47 pm
After begging the cops to come in and ticket the first sweep they did included the car we had just bought our daughter. It had temporary plates and was parked legally.
I wasn’t real happy about it, but I was glad to know that the Police were driving around.
We ended up donating the car to The Bridge House because it did in fact, look abandoned.
December 24th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
All:
I am very exicited and thankful that the 2nd district is in our neighborhood for the meanial task of ticketing cars that are parked illegally. I understand that as an individual homeowner having parked the wrong way one time and getting almost ticketed that was probably extremely frustrating.
However, As stated above we are working on geting our neighborhood recognized and attended to, and not just for murder or drug dealing. Every six weeks or so, I submit a list of abandon vehicles to the 2nd district..this takes several hours…sometimes I have help, sometimes not. There are others that track the dumping of tires and garbage. They too, spend lots of time working on this.
This latest, “parking sting” if you will, was on the heals of us working on an illegal dumping/car stripping problem that we litterally have worked on for over two years. We are now lucky enough to have a Quality of Life Officer that is very proactive and is a tremendous help.
I urge anyone with parking or abandoned car issues, illegal dumping etc to email the NWCCA website. If you communicate with us this way we can keep the momentum going.
Thanks for everyone’s concern and care. This is a terrfic neighborhood and I feel like we are all united in that belief and want positive things to happen here.
Happy New Year!!!