Zomby got to this article before I could get home tonight and blog it myself. Seems that the Denver police union is unhappy with the current police chief, and is threatening to write fewer tickets if he's not replaced. The threat being Denver needs the ticket revenue for the general budget.
Denver police won't write tickets to help the city's coffers as long as Gerry Whitman is leading the department, the union implies in a letter to Mayor John Hickenlooper's transition committee...
Detective Robert Freund, vice president of the PPA's board, said he thought it was a mistake to view the statements about ticket writing as threats from the organization.
"Let's face it, the police department is one of the few agencies in the city and county of Denver that generates revenue," Freund said. "How much revenue is generated - basically, the more you like your job, and the happier you are, the more productive you are . . . I don't see it as a threat. I see it as right now, we have a police department that isn't very happy."
Ah-huh. Sure. I share Zomby's revulsion over the whole affair. Says he:
What a load of BS. Firstly, tickets are not written (or should not be written) as a form of further taxation of the citizens. Tickets are issued (or should be issued) because people have broken the law not because the city needs to shore up its tax revenue. I mean, that would be like making a deal with tobacco companies to rape loads of the income that they make from selling legal products to help balance state budgets. Oh, sorry, oops.
It's bad, but it's no surprise. A year or two ago Denver tried to raise revenue by increasing parking meter rates and increasing the number of parking tickets issued. This from The State of Colorado, Feb. of '02.
The city is counting on a 46 percent revenue increase generated from the meters and tickets. Parking enforcement agents are expected to write 75 or more tickets a day as a performance standard.
You've read that correctly. The city needs the money, so parking monitors are required to write at least 75 tickets a day, regardless of how many cars are actually illegally parked!
Ethics and city government are only casual aquaintances. I don't think Denver is unique in that respect.
Ya know - Al Capone could've learned a thing or two from government.
But this does shed some light on why various city councils are in such a rush to ban citizens from carrying firearms into meetings. After all, what bunch of thieves would want the people they've robbed or are about to rob showing up at their house armed?
Myrtle Beach, SC is real bad about this sort of thing. It's a tourist town & a sizeable chunk, if not the majority of the city's income comes from tickets. In fact, if you have the money on you, you can bail yourself out on the spot after you're booked. well at least for the non-violent, non-drug related crimes. They make no pretense that most of the minor violations have any purpose other than revenue.
But I suspect this is the rule rather than the exception.
Any thoughts on how bad Hickenlooper will be as mayor?
Posted by: Publicola at August 22, 2003 06:27 AMHickenlooper probably couldn't be any worse than Wellington Webb. Hick supported going after delinquent parking tickets as a revenue source. He likes more spending on light rail but is looking for other places to make budget cuts, more out of necessity than any sense of fairness.
Posted by: Walter in Denver at August 22, 2003 08:54 AM