City Uses New Law To Grabs $20 Million In Parking Ticket Fines
It’s getting harder for parking ticket scofflaws to avoid the long arm of Mayor Rahm Emanuel these days.
Earlier this year, the Illinois General Assembly passed a law that allowed the City of Chicago, and other municipalities to grab the state tax refunds of residents who owe them money for any type of debt.
This, of course, includes unpaid parking tickets and red light camera tickets.
Mayor Emanuel convinced the City Council to get on board with the idea in April, and in a matter of days, the State of Illinois Comptroller’s office was seizing tax refunds to offset fines for overdue parking and red light camera tickets.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, the city has been able to use this tactic to collect nearly $20 million by year’s end.
This aggressive collection tool has angered many drivers, some who claim the city is going after debt over 20 years old.
“This money grab is a scam,” says a website reader named Richard S. “The State and City of Chicago need to be taken to court over this practice. It is not legal just to take people’s money like this.”
But this move has allowed for the city to collect from deadbeats who live outside the city, who’s vehicles are often out of reach of Chicago’s booting crews who can only immobilize a vehicle on the public way within the city limits. Half the collections came from non-residents.
Here’s the Sun-Times’ full report with the incorrect headline, “Rahm’s hard line on parking, traffic tickets pays off with $70M .”
“Richard S” is a dope. The new law made it perfectly legal to take people’s money like this. There is no statute of limitations on a parking ticket.
It may well be that there is no statute of limitations on a parking ticket. (That being said, an equitable argument certain does exist and could well be used by a court to throw out these tickets). And that’s the problem. The whole point of SoL’s is to force people (or the Government) to assert their rights within a certain period of time or lose them. They are not allowed to “sit on their equities”. The theory, and it makes sense, is that overtime the ability to defend against a charge, even a baseless charge, declines. By not providing a limit, an unscrupulous person or government can simply wait until no reasonable person would still have proof to the contrary and then assert a very old claim. And in the case where the entity making the claim and the entity judging the claim are the same, its particularly unfair. The City has many tools to collect unpaid tickets. It should not be allowed to “sit on its equities” by waiting for many years. Just because the legislature passed a law does not make it necessary fair or right or legal.
David, I think I hate you.
I drool with envy reading how deftly and concisely you put forth your explanation of, and argument against the city’s use (or abuse?) of the new state law.
Damn!