SUBMITTED: Wednesday, October 20, 2004
POSTED: Thursday, November 11, 2004
In a previous post, Richard understandably said, "And they have the balls to ask us homeowners/taxpayers/abiding citizens for tax increases on the coming November Ballot? Are they crazy? Forget it. I am gonna vote against it and I encourage all readers who vote within to do the same."
After what he has been through, Richard's point is well made. All of the English speaking world has been able to read of Richard's day-to-day experiences that exhibited government waste, unconscionable actions and ineptitude sanctioned by ongoing "policies" of government bureaucrats and politicians, and taxpayer dollars used wickedly against its own law abiding people by the City of Los Angeles.
Los Angeles reportedly already has the highest sales tax in the State of California, and the November ballot measure Richard refers to is to increase that city sales tax for the supposed use by LAPD.
I recently read that LAPD for the last few months has been busying itself "raiding" Motel 6's in the San Fernando Valley, not for any reported crime or suspected crimes, but on general principles LOOKING for any possibility of motel guests who MAY have a problem with the
law.
LAPD has been doing this by checking all Motel 6 parking lots, "running license plates through police car computer terminals and getting instantaneous information about registered owners."
Not surprisingly, there's no mention of LAPD performing identical Big Brother "sweeps" in the parking lots of 4-Star and 5-Star hotels where well-heeled white collar criminals, drug lords or terrorists MAY be lodging for the night or the week. Only Motel 6's and competitive lower priced motels.
Back to the lower echelon of Los Angeles "law enforcement" in whose clutches Richard found himself for over a month.
That "law enforcement" entity is the dynamic duo consisting of LA's unarmed parking officers and booters (whose tainted forces are suspected of being recruited from Leavenworth) AND their equally dishonorable business partner, ACS, otherwise known as the Los Angeles Parking Violations Bureau whose employees are likewise discouraged from exercising reason, ethical behavior or any thinking capacity beyond the level of protozoa.
Fines for Los Angeles parking citations have always been excessive compared to those in other parts of the country, and a year ago the LA city council made across-the-board increases for those already high parking fines. (Los Angeles has about 135 different TYPES of parking
violations.)
The city council also increased the city's "boot fee" from $35 to $100, whether or not booting of a particular vehicle would be a lawful action to begin with. (From my own experience, it was not.)
What are the taxpayers of Los Angeles paying for the city's gargantuan parking enforcement operation?
Well, for starters, there are the TWO private companies -- ACS and PRWT -- who are in business with Los Angeles to get a piece of its parking violations pie. ACS occupies the 23rd floor and PRWT the 22nd floor of a downtown LA office building at 606 South Olive Street. What does the rent run for those two floors of downtown office space? Then there are the four "payment centers" operated and manned by personnel from these two collection agencies for the fundamental purpose of collecting parking fines as designated on their often faulty records. ("Mistakes" of course are always to the financial detriment of the vehicle owner, never the agency.) Plus there are all of the salaried employees of these two collection agencies who man phones, collect fines and habitually dispense false information or no information -- likely what they've been told to do and not do -- to inquiring citizens whose vehicles may or may not have been issued a parking ticket. It's anybody's guess what the payrolls are of these two companies. Oh yes, the ACS company also spends bucks on the downtown law firm of Iverson, Yoakum, Papiano and Hatch when it gets into legal trouble over its Parking Violation Bureau practices or those of its City of Los Angeles partner.
In addition to those costs for Los Angeles taxpayers for the "work" of these two collection agencies (ACS and PRWT) and THEIR payrolls, the City of Los Angeles itself must have a huge payroll to meet for its parking enforcement activity.
This payroll consists of (1) the multitudes of ubiquitous meter maids and unarmed parking officers, sergeants, lieutenants and captains who ooze up out of the city's sewers there at any time of day or night, (2) a couple of hundred slithering Los Angeles booters, (3) the higher salaried LA parking enforcement bureaucrats in downtown LA and their clerical help, (4) their in-house parking enforcement assistant city attorney, and (5) the clerical employees at enforcement divisions throughout the city.
A four or five story building at Vermont and the Hollywood Freeway, in which all the city's booters are headquartered, is used exclusively for parking enforcement activity by the City of Los Angeles. That's right, the entire building. What are the maintenance and utility costs for that building alone? The taxpayers' outlay for LA's fleets of parking enforcement vehicles used by parking ticket issuers and booters must also be substantial, to say nothing of the maintenance, repair and fuel costs for those vehicles. Who pays for all that?
As local permanent residents get wiser and more skillfully able to avoid parking citation traps (usually after getting unmercifully or unjustly gouged in the pocketbook) the city just devises more methods for increasing revenue from parking citations (actual or fraudulent) to offset its enforcement expenditures. It is a vicious lose-lose cycle which Los Angeles decision makers perpetuate by simply raising taxes and increasing fines for its citizenry, its businesses and its visitors.
Not by cutting spending.
I tend to agree with an LA citizen who recently wrote that higher taxes create a more depressed society, which creates a less productive society, which creates more crime in the community.
Los Angeles, the paradise of long ago, has become a monster of its own making. Its voracious appetite, warped values and totalitarian mindset does indeed repel visitors, would-be residents and prospective businesses. A city which boasts of taking in more than $100 million annually in parking fines, as the elected LA city attorney recently did, is sick indeed....as sick as boasting about a high crime rate.
A band-aid of yet higher taxes won't do the trick to cure the City of Los Angeles of its illness.