The Great Decatur Parking Meter Controversy

-from misc.legal

> Ok here's one for the lawyers. What's the deal with parking meters?

The deal is this: you put money in them when you park next to them. If you get back to your car before the wildly inaccurate spring-driven timing mechanism expires, then you can drive away a happy man. It's a lot like the deal with slot machines, but you practically never win anything.

> They NEVER have the statute posted that notifies a motorist of their
> obligation to fill it with their hard earned money.

You know, I said the same thing when I shot some guy on Main Street the other day.

"Where was the sign saying I couldn't shoot him?"

Oy. I'd be surprised if the meter didn't say something like "50 cents for one-half hour ; 5 hour maximum." What language did you want that in?

>There is nothing
> in the state driver's handbook on parking meters. At least not the
> state that insists on pushing its laws on me.

That could be because the state has nothing to do with the parking meters. The parking meters are probably the subject of local ordinance. It could also be because the state driver's handbook is not an authoritative source of law, nor is it intended to be.

If you don't want them pushing their laws on you, then don't push your car along the street they built. You are consuming their resources by using that street. Why aren't you obligated to pay for it?

> Several years ago I got a "parking citation" from someone associated
> with Decatur, Georgia. I returned and refused the citation without
> prejudice and asked for the statute obligating me to put money in the
> meter. They never did send me the statute and threatened me with
> arrest if I didn't pay. I didn't pay but sent them a very legal letter
> informing them of my right of due process.

A very legal letter? I'd like to see an illegal letter.

Your right of due process was served when you were presented with the citation and thus given notice and an opportunity to be heard. By not taking advantage of that opportunity, you have probably waived it. I'm sure that they would have gladly informed you of the nature of the charge against you at the hearing. You don't have some personal right to a written explanation delivered to your residence. You've been charged with a violation. You had every right to go down to the municipal court and argue that there was no ordinance requiring you to pay. They don't have to make house calls.

> To make a long story short I never paid the citation. No warrant was
> ever issued and no further action was taken by the City of Decatur,
> Georgia.

Many municipalities issue a bench warrant in these circumstances, which doesn't require they notify you. If you ever get into trouble in Decatur, they'll be sure to let you know. And you will, at that time, again be afforded an opportunity to be heard (on the arrest at least, since you likely waived your right to contest the parking ticket).

> Now isn't there supposed to be some notification somewhere of a
> Citizen's obligations as they pertain to "parking meters"?

There is zero requirement on the part of the state, city, or anyone else to provide you with a personal tutorial in the law. Even if there were, if you believe that the presence of parking meters was insufficient notice that you had to pay for parking, then your best argument would be mental incapacity.
Even then, it is unlikely that the ordinance requires a specific mental state to constitute an element of the offense.

>Seems like
> another government scam to me.

Seems to me that Decatur, like many other cities, needs to pay for city services like fighting crime and protecting their citizens from fire, and they also need to regulate traffic. Hence, they have settled upon parking
meters as one way to raise revenue and to regulate traffic. But since you weren't given a personal invitation to participate, then you believe you have a right to run up their expenses.

Straight from the Georgia Legislature to you...

32-4-92.

(a) The powers of a municipality with respect to its municipal
street system, unless otherwise expressly limited by law, shall
include but not be limited to the following:

[...]
(7) A municipality may regulate and control the use of the public
roads on its municipal street system and on portions of the county
road systems extending within the corporate limits of the
municipality. Any municipality may regulate the parking of
vehicles on any such roads in order to facilitate the flow of
traffic and to this end may require and place parking meters on or
immediately adjacent to any or all of such roads for the purpose
of authorizing timed parking in designated spaces upon the payment
of a charge for such privilege. A municipality also may place such
parking meters on or adjacent to any public road on the state
highway system located within the corporate limits of the
municipality when authorized by the department pursuant to Code
Section 32-6-2;


And in case you are still confused:

48-17-1.

As used in this chapter:
The term "bona fide coin operated amusement machine" does not
include the following:

[...]

(ix) Coin operated parking meters;

> Is it this or is it another section of the code that authorizes the
> municipality to impose and collect a fine for unauthorized timed
> parking?

It appears to be the section of the Georgia state code that authorizes the city of Decatur to install parking meters for the stated purpose - i.e. authorizing timed parking upon payment of a charge for such privilege. It is interesting that the way it is phrased seems to suggest that the purpose
of "authorizing" the charge is served by the act of "placing" the meter immediately adjacent to the road. One could read this statute to mean that the mere placement of the meter by the municipality is all that is needed in order to establish metered parking zones, but I did not refer to the annotated code which, no doubt, would have had references to the judicial interpretive history of what is the very central essence, indeed some would say, the pinnacle of Georgian legislative wisdom.

I did like the helpful definitional distinction relative to coin-operated amusement devices. Imagine the disastrous consequences of a legislative omission here. My goodness, angst-ridden Georgians lining the streets....
desperately dropping quarters into parking meters to soothe their troubled souls. Rather, the finest legal minds from the very heart of Dixie wisely stepped in to inform any who would hear the call - no, these are not coin-operated amusement devices. Whereupon a goodly portion of the Atlanta population returned to the laundromat to watch the spin cycle.

Alas, the municipal ordinances of the thriving metropolis of Decatur do not appear to be online (at least I didn't find them), which again raises the essential injustice done to this poor man, our correspondent, who had no clue as to the function of those odd devices adjacent to which he parked his car and who, in any event, was allowed to remain tragically uninformed. For all he knew, they could have been coin-operated amusement devices peculiar to the peachtree state. Can he be held responsible for intimate knowledge
of every manner of modern wonder? Here he was, probably invited by a friend in Decatur for a pleasant evening of unlocking pay toilets, and upon disembarking from his buggy, he is confronted by one of these mute sentinels of the sidewalk - giving about as much indication of its nature and function
as the statues of Easter Island or the monoliths of Stonehenge.

Astute legal scholars will recall the seminal case of District of Columbia v. One Saddle, 52 Crank 43 (U.S. 1860) which was an in rem action brought in response to a saddle which had been left tied, horseless, to a public hitching post outside of a tavern. The leather had been exposed to the elements for a couple of days, making the knot extremely hard to untie. Consequently a city employee spent the better part of a day untying the knot. In order to recover the wages lost in that endeavor, the city sought
to obtain the saddle. This case is the starting point for most law school courses in parking meter jurisprudence. The owner of the saddle was, of course, John Wilkes Booth, who is the father of that American tradition of viewing parking regulation as the ultimate indicator of society's
committment to justice, or lack thereof. Of course, the saddle case was peculiar to D.C., which is under the direct administration of Congress. It took the blood of many a mother's son and a constitutional amendment to establish federal parking principles as the law of the several states of this Union.

Parking matters. It mattered to Mr. Booth, who shouted "Sic Semper Tyranis" as he shot Honest Abe, and muttered "Put up a sign from now on" as he limped from the stage of the Ford Theater. And it still matters today in Decatur, Georgia, whose obscure parking regulations led the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. himself to specifically exhort, "Let freedom ring..." from nearby Stone Mountain in his most famous speech.

A society that refuses to post its parking regulations in plain view cannot be long upon this earth. This will not stand.