City Council Committee Approves Bill To Make Fighting Parking Tickets Easier
By Mike Dunn
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - A City Council committee has approved a plan to let you fight parking tickets without having to show up in person. The vote came despite objections from the agency that hears appeals.
Currently anyone fighting a parking ticket has to show up in person at the Bureau of Administrative Adjudication at 9th and Filbert Streets in Center City. City Council wants the BAA to allow for telephone appeals and online appeals.
Councilman Bill Green, a co-sponsor, even wants appeals heard by Skype.
"We won't have to build any equipment in our system whatsoever," Green says. "Those conference calls can be recorded, and the record will exist for later appeal through the use of modern technology."
BAA Director Jerry Connors does not oppose online written appeals, but said he doesn't have the manpower to handle telephone or Skype appeals.
"And we get drowned with the frivolous appeals that outweigh, overstep our ability to deal with legitimate appeals."
Councilman Bill Greenlee says people should not have to wait for several hours just to have their argument heard.
"We do not enjoy making people wait, one little bit more than they enjoy waiting," Connors replied.
"But why not try to take that away a little bit, is what I'm saying," Greenlee says. "I think that's what this bill does."
Connor's objections fell on deaf ears as the committee unanimously approved the plan and sent it to the full council for a vote next month.
