City of Rockford should inform residents about what ordinances are being enforced
August 26th, 2008 at 02:55pm Chuck Sweeny
I talked by phone this morning to a woman with a complaint that illustrates perfectly the City of Rockford’s often arrogant treatment of its residents.
This was a mom whose son drives an over-the-road tractor trailer rig. The son, who’s in his late 20s, is on the road constantly and only home 2 to 3 days a month.
He’d come home after weeks of hauling freight, and was tired. He parked his tractor (not the trailer) in the driveway, close to the house so that it wouldn’t be a nuisance.
At 1:20 a.,m., a “276-to 6′er” (Rockford police officer) wrote out a $200 ticket and attached it to the truck. When the mom called City Hall, she was told that she was supposed to know that an ordinance prevents people from parking big trucks on their residential property.
How, she wondered, are people supposed to know that? Indeed, how were the people with the non-compliant driveways supposed to know they were in violation of a 50-year old ordinance THAT HAD NEVER BEEN ENFORCED!!!!!!!?????????
Now the man has to pay the fine.
If anybody at City Hall reads this, please tell us what else is in your ordinance book that you might decide to enforce? And how are we supposed to know about it?
You might try using your vast public relations infrastructure to inform the public by news release, remarks at City Council meetings, and redesigning your Web site so that information on ordinances is grouped by topic.. And, you could have one of your lawyers re-write some of the gobbledygook language so that average people can understand it.
Oh, and make sure all departments don’t contradict each other when they give residents information.
Can you hear me now?
Entry Filed under: City ordinances
6 Comments Add your own
1. Rappites | August 26th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
YEAH for you. Keep up the good work. At the very least his ticket should be taken down to a warning. Is the City that hard up for tax dollars. Going on to private property to issue a ticket. I am sure there are more serious crimes going on.
2. the dude abides | August 26th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
You’re asking for trouble, Chuck. If it’s anything like their last press release, it’ll be too vague to matter.
I imagine it would go something like this:
“Rockford police warn residents around the city of Rockford that they’ll be writing tickets for a multitude of code violations this week.
No more information was available.
When asked for clarification, the Chief of Police said that the RRStar could FOIA him, but, as usual, the request would be denied.”
3. unmanager | August 26th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
http://www.municode.com/resources/gateway.asp?pid=11482&sid=13
Actually the ordinances are not hard to FIND on the city website(though the site is pretty lame.) The mystery is MAKING sense of them…(keep in mind, we paid thousands of $$$$ to pay an out of state law firm to RE-WRITE these codes)….my experience with this type of enforcement leads me to be quite certain SOME neighbor called in a complaint….
As a side note, I enjoy the sidewalk/driveway concrete/blacktop enforcement story…
http://www.rrstar.com/communities/x275051972/Homeowners-wonder-why-Rockford-officials-start-enforcement-of-interrupted-sidewalks
Quote:
Ryan Meseck’s Oxtail Way driveway runs from his garage to the street, uninterrupted by sidewalk. It would be of little note except that it’s smack in the middle of a brewing conflict over sidewalks and driveways between residents and city officials in this subdivision west of the Aldeen Golf Club….
But city officials have ordered Meseck’s neighbor to the north to rip out brand-new asphalt and install a new driveway within a year. And in the midst of having a new driveway installed this summer, the city demanded his neighbor to the south to delay construction and have a new sidewalk installed…..The Thomas’ said they were disturbed, to say the least, because they already had called the city before nearly $2,000 worth of work began on their driveway. City officials told them they didn’t need a permit for driveway reconstruction, much less to install a sidewalk….
Sosnowski said that’s why the city has made the projects eligible for reimbursement from the 50-50 Sidewalk Program which reduce the cost of sidewalks by using a citywide contractor. In the program, the city splits the cost of sidewalk repair or installation with the homeowner who is responsible for upkeep of sidewalks…
…earlier, I recall Ald. Wasco using a portion of his ward’s allocation to add sidewalks on Applewood and in the last month many sidewalks in the Signal Hill neighborhood(part 3rd Ward,part 7th Ward) were replaced by aldermen’s discrectionary use of funds…side note: one fellow PAID 50/50 a few years back, every other house on the block got it FREE this year,including a slumlord property occasionally rented by dope dealers….needless to say, HE’S a littled ticked off…..
Improved communication (311 Center…being explored now…cost…$$$$??) isn’t the answer(IMHO), CONSISTENCY in enforcement and warnings on first offenses would be the proper first step…
4. Chuck Sweeny | August 26th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
What’s nuts about the situation I described is the ticket written at 1:20 a.m.! I’d rather see that 276 to 6er out catching drug dealers than giving tickets to hard working Rockfordians parking their truck for the night.
5. the dude abides | August 26th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
“I’d rather see that 276 to 6er out catching drug dealers than giving tickets to hard working Rockfordians parking their truck for the night.”
Pharmacists?
6. unmanager | August 27th, 2008 at 4:35 am
“What’s nuts about the situation I described is the ticket written at 1:20 a.m.! I’d rather see that 276 to 6er out catching drug dealers than giving tickets to hard working Rockfordians parking their truck for the night.”…that’s right,but as I said, SOMEONE lodged a complaint, some one of the “6″ made it a priority(the” 276″ would rather be catching REAL criminals)
Leave a Comment
Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
Trackback this post | Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed