Illegal Parking In Handicapped Spots

I've known a few people in office and they were berserkly busy and so were their staffs - but I'm surprised you didn't even get a courtesy response either time.

I just added a tag re city vehicles in hc parking. We'll see if it picks up any fur.

Back in California, we could call our local assembly person re issues like this. I knew our assembly person and what her office dealt with, back then.
I don't know if that is useful re where you are, but you might try it.

ossobuco I only got the automatic response message below when I sent the first and second email!
Dear Citizen,

Thank you for contacting the Office of the Mayor. I appreciate hearing your views, and I welcome your suggestions. To ensure that your thoughts and concerns receive full consideration, I review each email on an individual basis.

Please accept this message as acknowledgement that your email has been received.

If you require immediate assistance, or would like to request City services, please dial 311 to call the City of Baltimore’s One Call Center, or contact 311 Online at the website below.

https://baltimore.customerservicerequest.org

If your email is a request for City services, the City agency or department that is handling your request will contact you directly. Otherwise, I will respond to your email as soon as possible. All emails are responded to in the order that they are received.

If you have sent a hyperlink, a chain forward, or if your email concerns issues that are unrelated to City or constituent affairs, please know that these types of emails will not receive a response.

Again, thank you for contacting me, and please don’t hesitate to do so in the future.


Sincerely,

Stephanie Rawlings-Blake
Mayor
City of Baltimore


Visit Our Website @ www.baltimorecity.gov

I live in Baltimore County where the incident occurred. The truck that was illegally parked in the handicapped spot was from Baltimore City!

I went to You Tube and looked up ten videos of the Baltimore City Mayor. I left the message below on the comments section of each video!

Stephanie Rawlings-Blake does not care about us handicapped citizens. I complained to her office twice about one of her Baltimore City trucks illegally parking in a handicapped space with no handicapped tags or placards! She never answered my inquiry! She is a pitiful person!

Nice

I think that posting those messages on You Tube was just plain silly.

If you really want a response from the mayor, send her a typed letter, by regular mail, which asks for a specify reply or explanation from her.

The issue isn't really whether the mayor cares about handicapped citizens. It's more about whether Baltimore City vehicles are needlessly, or inappropriately, violating parking laws, and whether this goes on on a regular basis.

For instance, was that truck even on City business when it was parked there? Did the driver use a handicapped spot because it was the only space wide enough to accommodate the vehicle? A City truck should have more leeway about where it can be parked, but only if that is necessary to accomplish City business. I'm sure that City vehicles may also double park, or park by fire hydrants, from time to time. To some extent, since the City makes and enforces the traffic and parking codes, City vehicles can be parked just about anywhere with impunity.

A few years ago, the very large municipal parking lot for my office building was partially ripped up in order to replace some underground pipes. The main area ripped up was where the handicapped spaces were located. The parking meters were pulled out, the ground was dug up, and the whole handicapped area was taped off. But then, all work suddenly stopped, nothing more was done to the area, and this went on for weeks on end with the area remaining unusable for parking during this time. Since no other temporary handicapped spaces were provided during this period, which went on for about two months, parking became a nightmare for me. Often I had to park at a very far distance from the building and I was in agony walking back and forth from my car.

I contacted the mayor of the municipality involved and complained about the situation. While the mayor apologized about the situation, and about causing my difficulties, he maintained that work schedules elsewhere, and a lack of sufficient manpower, had delayed the work in the parking lot. He offered no sufficient explanation for why additional temporary handicapped spaces could not be provided elsewhere in the parking lot, and he did not seem to genuinely appreciate the mobility problems of handicapped drivers.

Although I could have pursued this matter further, I really felt it would be a waste of my time and energy. What was going on with the parking lot was the result of extremely poor planning--they had started a job they could not continue to work on for weeks and weeks. In addition, this municipality was known for "abusing" drivers in other ways. Parking meters in this same lot were routinely broken and not replaced. For instance, a parking meter which registered 6 hours of remaining time, when the driver parked the car, would run out in under 3 hours because the internal clock was malfunctioning. Drivers, who had no way of knowing the meter was malfunctioning, would return later to find their cars ticketed. The municipality, which was generally rife with corruption, never fixed these meters because they made more money handing out parking tickets.

The municipality's disregard for handicapped drivers in that lot was really no worse than their disregard for all drivers, they just didn't give a damn, and they simply did what they wanted. In this instance, I was not a resident of this municipality and I felt it would be futile to try to make a bigger issue of this particular situation with the handicapped parking, given this notoriously bad municipal administration. I did successfully fight a parking ticket I received at one of those broken meters, but that didn't succeed in getting the meter fixed. I chose, instead, to discuss my parking problem with the management of my office building, and they kindly provided me with a sticker which allowed me to park in their small private parking area adjacent to the rear of the building. While this was a slightly longer walk for me than the handicapped parking in the public lot would have been, this area was unmetered, so I had one less problem and that was a more than decent trade off.

But I did get a response, of sorts, from that mayor, I was not ignored. And I can't think of any instance when I have not gotten a response from any public official or CEO I have complained to about a matter. I know how to complain in a manner which gets me a response, and generally a more than satisfactory response. Had I really wanted to pursue it, I know that I could have publicly embarrassed that mayor into speeding up work on that parking lot. This particular battle just wasn't one I felt like devoting much time to--and that mayor got ousted in the next election.

So, if you want to complain about something, do it in a way which is more guaranteed of getting results. An e-mail, which really isn't asking for a specific type of response, is not the way to do it.

VM elected officials are very busy and can receive up to 1,000 of emails, calls and letters a day. I think you are being too hasty in wanting a response now. Give it time....just a suggestion.

btw I emailed the Governor of WA. regarding what I considered a very serious issue and I don't even really like her or mostly what she stands for. One thing I must compliment her on was that she delegated that email to the correct person and I was responded to in one day followed up by a phone call and I agreed to a recorded conference call. They felt my allegations were serious enough to start an investigation.

I knew who the correct person was, there was a reason I contacted the Governor.

Over the years I've emailed mayors and county executives and my member of the Baltimore County Council here . I always got a prompt reply from them. My Senators and Congressman in Washington always takes some time to answer.

They are elected officials - it is in their best interest to respond.

You didn't ask for a response. There's no reason to expect one.

Silly.

I hope your second letter was clearer than your first about what you expected to have happen.

I contacted her a second time no answer to that message either! She knows that I want an answer!

Did you say explicitly in your second letter that you were requesting a response? If it was no more clearly worded, you'll just have to hang around til they have a psychic go through the mail.

What kind of answer do you expect from her?

You informed her of a single instance when you saw a City truck parked in a handicapped spot. What, exactly, do you expect the mayor to do about that?

You are informing the mayor about something that occurred which bothered you. Your message, at least the first one, did not ask for a specific response, or explanation, from the mayor. You did receive a form message in reply, and it is possible that, whoever did read your e-mail, did not feel a further response was needed. It is also possible that your complaint was considered too insubstantial to warrant further investigation. A report of a single instance of a City vehicle being parked in a handicapped space is not really earth-shattering news to a mayor. Unless this is an ongoing or widespread problem, I'm not sure there is much the mayor could do to even address it. Beyond a possible apology for your inconvenience, I wouldn't expect any sort of reply. And, whether you even get an apology, would depend on how busy the mayor's staff is, and how attentive they are to public relations.

Truthfully, at this point, I think you are beating a dead horse.

I expect her to friggen discipline the driver! If you were disabled like me you wouldn't be talking like that. One day you may become disabled!

I agree - if this elected official wishes to be elected again - one would expect her to be responsive to those who can put her in office (and take her out again).

See what happened in Mass. when Martha Chokely thought she was too good to shake hands with us commoners? Us commoners decided we didn't want some one in office who thought they were above us.

I am disabled. I have a handicapped parking permit. So, please don't tell me I don't understand the nature of your problem.

That's why I was so upset when all the handicapped spaces in that municipal lot I parked in at work were rendered unusable for two months.

But, just because I am handicapped, I don't expect a mayor to go on a rampage because I was unable to park in a handicapped spot on a single occasion.

I would not necessarily expect the mayor to discipline the driver of that truck for a parking violation. The driver might have had good reason to park the truck there, and City vehicles can park pretty much wherever they please, as long as they are on City business. What makes you think they are bound by the same parking regulations as ordinary citizens? Have you ever seen the way the police drive or park? And, why would the mayor even have to tell you whether or not she disciplined a City employee over a parking matter?

Because something strikes you as being important does not mean it carries the same weight or significance with a public official. You would have been equally inconvenienced if another handicapped driver, rather than a City truck, had been parked in that same spot. That's life, there isn't much you can do about it. There is not unlimited handicapped parking.

Trying to insult the mayor, as you did on your You Tube messages, does not seem like a particularly mature way to handle your feelings of being ignored.

So whats makes a city employee so much more special? Unless there is a specific reason that s/he would need to there, or course. Victor pays this person's salary (and the mayor's) - they should not have priority over anyone else.

The mayor should be accountable to the citizens of her city/town - they pay for this person's salary and they elect the mayor. If the mayor isn't accountable to the people she represents then who the h*ll is the mayor accountable.

Perhaps the mayor (or a representative of the office) isn't the best person to send this letter to, however, they mayor should be concerned enough of the town's citizens and respect them enough to either forward this email or address it personally.

Believe me I would expect the mayor to answer me. My own city's mayor had his assistant address a concern I had. My own city's mayor gave information to my 4th grader for a school paper. If the mayor can provide information for a school report, I think a mayor could spare a few minutes with a handicapped person's concern.