One of the more unfortunate aspects of the Bloomberg years has been how our current leadership views the people of the city as a source of funding rather than as people just trying to make their way through their daily lives. Nothing exemplifies this attitude more, or has made this city more unaffordable, then the excessive enforcement of traffic and parking violations.
The high quotas for writing tickets have become well known as enforcement has been heightened. While the NYPD denies that ticketing is now revenue-driven, they also euphemistically and insultingly refer to their quota system as “goals” for officers to reach.
This has lead to the most recent city scandal, a ticket-fixing scheme in the Bronx, which may result in the indictment of up to 40 officers and another 100 facing disciplinary action for fixing the tickets of family and friends. The city has now become so desperate for every dollar of revenue that well-intentioned officers pushed into writing questionable tickets to meet their “goal” are being punished by the Internal Affairs Bureau with the loss of vacation days every time one of their tickets is dismissed in court.
Already over 100 cops have been sanctioned by the IAB with an average of 10 vacation days lost. The backlash is that officers are ignoring their quota and engaging in a summons slowdown. They’d rather not write tickets if they risk losing vacation time every time they step into court.
This is clearly an abuse of our police force, but it is also an abuse of our citizens. The idea that most people would rather just pay the fine instead of investing the effort it takes to fight in court is one better suited to late night TV infomercials where you get three for the price of one if you call right now. It is unbecoming for our elected officials to prey on the average NYC resident in this same manor.
In the end, it just illustrates the contempt that our elitist leaders must harbor for the average, hard-working citizen of this increasingly expensive city. It’s not enough that they make life impossible for car owners, with fewer lanes to drive in, fewer and more expensive parking spaces and a traffic agent on every block just waiting for your meter to expire.
They now are showing equal contempt for summons writers who don’t equally treat motorists like a line in the budget and instead perhaps show them the respect that the people of this city deserve.
Robert Hornak is a Queens-based political consultant, blogger, and an active member of the Queens Republican Party.
