Show common sense with parking enforcement

Twelve years ago, I was helping at a bustling Ketchum furniture store where the owner had a delivery truck. As winter approached, he asked the City authorities if he could park his truck in front of the store at night, because his space (as well as the adjoining ones) had radiant heat piped beneath; thus there was no need for the city to plow that area. Sadly, the city said no, and the owner, although he was already paying $16,000 a month rent, still had to go to great lengths to procure a less convenient overnight parking spot.

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More recently, I met a friend who has a fine store in the same Ketchum complex, and due to the nature of her business, it’s imperative that she keeps her vehicle parked within eyeshot. This usually works out well for her; however a glitch she keeps experiencing is the need to dash out every two hours to re-park her car, while in the middle of work projects. This daily unsettlement sometimes irks her, especially during months of ‘slack’ when empty spots around her business are almost always abundant.

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The worst of it is, that this constant need for her to start up her car in the two-hour zone and then re-park around the corner, spews pollution into our clean air; as the first minutes of running the engine coincides with the worst spreading of exhaust emissions. This goes totally against the grain of Ketchum’s enlightened idling ordinance and several of her business neighbors agree that in this vein, the perpetual strict enforcement of the two-hour zone law is unreasonable.

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So far, she and I have both been impressed with the diplomatic approach that the Ketchum Police Department has used to educate motorists about our idling ordinance. And while it’s already challenging enough to keep a good business running in this town, it would be refreshing to see our dedicated parking enforcement officers apply some of this same common sense to their general ordinances. We feel that if our vigilant on-the-street ambassadors offered a little leeway, while using some self-empowerment in these situations, then this would go a long way toward illuminating the welcoming nature and fine character of our hardy town.

Halfway to revealing of Arbor Day time capsule

In the spring of 1986 I was part of Fall Church’s Beautification team. Our dedicated landscape crew consisted of Julie, Henry, Lawrence (Butch), James (Pee Wee) and I. For Arbor Day that spring, our group planted a six foot redbud tree a few feet off the curb in the parking lot directly across from the police station downstairs entrance. At the time, some city officials (from the personnel office?) made a photo op of the tree planting and created a time capsule with the snapshots, along with various other pertinent items of the era; including local newspaper clippings, and copies of the Cherry Hill Chronicle.

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Later on, after inquiring more about the time-capsule, we learned that it was not buried anywhere on the grounds, but rather filed away in a secure cabinet somewhere in City Hall. As this week marks the halfway point to the grand revealing of our time-capsule, I wonder if any of the current Falls Church personnel have knowledge of its whereabouts.

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Furthermore, as many municipalities have begun using online calendars that reach decades ahead, I would like to suggest that Falls Church personnel note on their calendars that Arbor Day of 2036 is the day for the grand revealing that we were promised. Meanwhile, I will mark my own day-planner in such a way that if I am lucky enough to still be alive in 25 years, I would be delighted to attend the small ceremony of the time-capsule re-opening.

Water service terminators and the little baby loophole

Years ago, when I worked for a public utility, every two weeks or so, the City Hall office handed out some shut-off work-orders for us to perform. Our water department usually worked well with late-paying customers. Besides the initial bill, City Hall mailed out past-due notices and then final notices before waiting another week to turn off a customer’s service.

Soon, I noticed that the same houses often ended up with delinquent accounts. In a way, this actually helped us, to become familiar with where those customers’ meters lay. We worked up certain strategies to make the operation quick. The driver pulled the truck up to the meter, while one of us burst out the side-door, unbolted the hatch, reached the special key down to the shut-off valve and turned everything off, all in a matter of seconds. We might have tested this with stopwatches, because we became lightning-fast.

As you can imagine, actually having it come to be, so that they were suddenly without their sacred water, angered some customers. After all, there was a time when clean water ran free nearly everywhere. Some would call the office, claiming that the check was in the mail, or that they had a sick baby, etc. All the old clichés. The sick baby excuse actually worked though. If someone used that pretext, we were required to return water service to their household the same day - payment or no. We did not seek to extract proof of the ill child, but only took the customer’s dry voice at word. I thought that this was some sort of health department mandate. However, perhaps it was a bit of empathy that the water department developed on its own - a policy which transcended book laws. I suppose that if I was a sick baby and my parents couldn’t afford to pay the bills, it would be nice to hear later, that the water department held some compassion.

Some in our crew compared our unhappy task to that what the repossession man must go through, before taking someone’s car back to the bank. Occasionally a terminated customer would sneak out to the valve at night and force the water back on with a pipe-wrench. If they had still not paid the bill several days after turnoff, we checked for tampering and re-read the meter for evidence of consumption. If we discovered tampering, we attached an elaborate brass lock mechanism around the neck of the shut-off valve.

Occasionally, we discovered that a customer had reset the valve by smashing off our hardy lock. One man did this and then parked his car tire over the meter top! This was the final straw for our superintendent. After hearing of this tomfoolery, he sent out a full crew, along with a police escort. Our crew jackhammered up the street and dug down eight feet to crimp off the customer’s connection at the water main. Then we refilled the hole, tamped the earth back down and patched the street with some ‘coal-mix.’ With the work complete, our superintendent proclaimed, “There, I’d like to see him try to turn his water back on now!”

The man lived in that tiny house for several more months, all the time without water –or so we thought. Once or twice, the health department went to his house for a welfare check, lugging along some fresh water containers in the event he would like some. They stated that the stubborn codger said he ‘warn’t thirsty’ and turned down their free offer.

Soon, his property was sold to a big developer to make room for progress and the man moved south. While the workers were excavating his tumbledown shack, they discovered that he had managed to rig his ancient well system back into service, which indicated that that he had been freely using the City’s sewerage system. He probably reckoned that - as hard as they say it is to do - he had fought City Hall and actually prevailed with a small victory.

This 'shabster' might have saved himself even more trouble had he known about the sick baby loophole.