In his recent speech to the legislature on the budget crisis, Gov. Schwarzenegger said that since the state is supplying less money to municipalities that it needs to have less rules and oversight, and that the state needs to clean up its act so the populace trusts them again.
A real good place to start would be by rescinding the $9.50 “state surcharge” currently being added to parking tickets in California. Because most everyone in California, I’m guessing, would view such surcharges as chickenshit gouging by the state.
Rather than gouging the people with ridiculous added fees to a what is already an incredibly inflated fine, the state should just layoff most of their parking officials and save everyone some much needed money and frustration.
Parking officials generally work for cities, not the state– and parking tickets sadly are a big source of local revenue. Years ago when I lived in Hermosa Beach, the city needed to balance its budget. Rather than lay off staff, they hired one additional meter monitor. They figured each “meter maid” added $100,000 to the bottom line– and that was about 1985.