Details about this story

• Source: KIRO-TV
• Date: May 09, 2007
• URL: Read the story
• Bylines: Chris Halsne
• Topics: Local Government
• Data Types: Local Data
• Description/Excerpt: You don't have to pay for parking or feed the meter on holiday: the sign says so. That seems simple enough, but KIRO Team 7 Investigators analyzed about three years worth of court records to find thousands of parking citations, stuck under shoppers' windshield wiper blades, on legal holidays. The City of Seattle has been cashing in on downtown street parking; $45,000 a day on average -- nearly double that amount if you count fines for people who don't pay. KIRO Team 7 Investigators reviewed a database of over-time parking citations and found 4,416 of them issued on legal holidays -- days the signs imply are free. Starting the day after Thanksgiving 2003, KIRO Team 7 Investigators found citizens paid at least $146,000 in questionable fines for tickets on legal holidays. Five hundred sixty-nine additional citizens "defaulted". That means they never paid holiday tickets. The city sent many of them to collections, likely hurting their credit scores. The tally was especially high Nov. 28,2003, Dec. 24 and 31, 2004, Nov. 25, 2005 and Dec. 26, 2005.