Houblog

Kevin at BlogHouston notes that KHOU is reporting on a goof by the city: issuing invalid parking tickets. Like that’s a surprise. Equally (un)surprising is where the blame is placed: on the employee.

Repeat after me: “It’s a training issue.” Its always a training issue: i.e.: the employee’s fault.

It couldn’t be that we have a mishmash of parking rules where it’s paid parking from 8am to 4pm on that street but it’s paid until 6pm two blocks over, or no parking from here to curb, or no parking from from 8am to 6pm except on weekends, but on a third street Saturdays are exempt, except in a certain zone where ’special event’ parking runs until 10pm (keep your calendar handy) unless it’s handicapped parking or ’special permit’ parking, or ‘30 minutes only’ parking, but on on days with a ‘W’, it’s 2 hour parking until 5pm on streets that have a ‘q’ in their name…except where posted.

Got all that?

Good. Now explain it to me. And don’t forget, getting that ticket dismissed by phone is just another example of how Mayor White’s Parking Authority is improving the life of Houstonians! Of course Ms. Rambo will probably be at a loss to explain how the “mistake” happened.

More city parking tickets are sticking
Fewer citations being issued, but a better-trained staff also means fewer dismissed
Fewer tickets have been dismissed because better-trained parking enforcement officers now make fewer technical errors, said Liliana Rambo, assistant director of parking management.

Especially since she was undoubtedly out of the office that day.

Rambo, who has been on the job about a year, could not explain the drop in tickets in previous years.

Heaven forbid that she try to become informed on anything that happened before she arrives at a job.

Fortunately, the poor lady who had to go through that hassle was not “out on the streets at particular times of night and particular areas of the city.” Nor did she have to worry about needing funding to have mishandled or bogus forensic evidence investigated in order to clear her name.

So just remember folks, staying safe in Houston means:
1. Don’t park anwhere near an untrained meter maid.
2. Don’t let anyone paint grafitti on the car while it’s parked.
3 Don’t go into certain areas of the city, such as public parks.
4. Close up shop early.
5. Don’t go to Lamar High
6. Don’t park at a Metro Park n’Pillage.
7. Don’t let HPD do any forensics tests if you’re accused of anything.
8. And above all, don’t depend on H.E.C. to be able to handle your call. Far more likely that they’ll misroute it, as they did me, Wed. morning, when I reported a car fire.

Is it just me, or does there seem to be a trend with our local government here? Did we import more from New Orleans than just the residents? I mean, did they bring the water with them or something?

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 15th, 2006 at 6:00 am and is filed under Random Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.