Watch Live: Congressional Hearing on IRS Scandal

Live Now on TheBlaze Radio: ‘The Buck Sexton Show’

Business

Sacramento Officials: Law-Abiding Citizens Are Hurting City Revenues

Jan. 29, 2013 9:00pm Becket Adams

Authorities in Sacramento, Calif., say law-abiding citizens are hurting city revenues.

Let us explain: The people of Sacramento have been doing such a good job of avoiding parking tickets that city officials say it’s starting to affect revenues.

“I do everything I can to avoid [parking tickets],” one woman told CBS Sacramento.

Sacramento’s Parking Services Manager Howard Chan says the city had planned on collecting $10 million in fines from parking offenders. But people have done such a good job of parking legally and feeding the meter that the city is now looking at a $1.2 million budget deficit.

“If you compare this year to 2009, there’s about a 15 percent decrease overall,” said Chan.

One of the reasons Sacramento residents have gotten better about parking is because the fines are pretty steep.

“Since 2009, the cost of an average ticket has risen 42 percent due to increases in state fees. That may have people thinking twice about breaking the law,” CBS Sacramento explains.

“I actually have coins in my car now, in case I forget,” said one woman.

Meters are also easier to feed after the city upgraded them to accept more than just quarters.

“If you make it easier for people to comply, they will,” said Chan.

But don’t worry, people of Sacramento: City officials say they’ll probably make it through 2013 without your parking fines.

“They say the million-dollar loss will have little impact on 2013′s general fund because the city will be able to make up the difference by using some money left over from 2012′s budget,” the report notes.

Follow Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) on Twitter

Featured image courtesy Getty Images.

In CONTROL, Glenn Beck presents a passionate, fact-based case for guns that reveals why gun control isn’t really about controlling guns at all; it’s about controlling us. Find out more HERE.

Back to The Blaze »

Comments (87)

hades3
Posted on January 30, 2013 at 10:51am
Well Duuuuh ! Stupid me, it never occurred too me that parking fines, speeding tickets, etc. were too increase city revenue. In the case of speeding tickets, I though citations promoted safety. As too parking meters, I thought they were too prevent permanent parking. I had no idea, the city was only looking for revenue. I suppose I must learn too trust government. (When the Devil sells ice cubes !)

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
common cents
Posted on January 30, 2013 at 10:47am
That’s their money in our pockets…. why do we think it belongs to us?

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
Nick_K
Posted on January 30, 2013 at 9:05am
The Vehicle code is a revenue source, rather than to regulate drivers’ behavior.

The Tax code, through the maze of deductions and credits, is often misused to influence behavior, rather than to collect revenue.

Just another symptom of simply having too much government.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
longun45
Posted on January 30, 2013 at 8:57am
The City of Sacramento deserves it. BIG TME

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
woodyee
Posted on January 30, 2013 at 8:39am
“Let us explain: The people of Sacramento have been doing such a good job of avoiding parking tickets that city officials say it’s starting to affect revenues.”

DON’T FEED THE BEAST!

DRIVE the posted speed limit. BIKE whenever you can – CA local and state taxes boost the price per gallon of gas to OVER .50 cents, compared to the .10cents per gallon or LESS, that the “greedy, polluting, RICH” oil companies make per gallon. The THIEVES are calling the rich ‘greedy’. YOU and I have payed federal gas taxes since the 50′s to pay for highways and bridges, but since 1983, they started diverting about 20% of gas taxes to go to a Mass Transit Account that is supposed to pay for public transportation like buses and railways.

FIGHT FOR YOUR MONEY! Follow me – Car registration was instituted as a means of protecting the consumer from car thieves. BY LAW – All states require registration; they require notification of sale, transfer or disposal of registered vehicles. So, once registered, that car is legally yours until YOU say otherwise. Why are you required to pay a registration “fee” every year, even if you haven’t sold, transferred or disposed of your vehicle? THEFT. YOU are being forced to pay a tax for merely owning it.

You Leftists would do better to invest some time looking at who’s REALLY picking your pockets, as opposed to PARROTING what the thieves say. Learn to read your pay stub – you WILL learn something about yourself, and how it is YOU who are im

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- woodyee
  Posted on January 30, 2013 at 8:41am
  …who are impoverishing yourselves.
  
  Report this comment
ColoradoMaverick
Posted on January 30, 2013 at 8:27am
It’s always about the revenues, not abiding by the law. Sick. The citizens of Kalifornia deserve what they get. They keep electing these fools, year in and year out.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
Fubar Frog
Posted on January 30, 2013 at 7:59am
Wait, didn’t Californication a while back encourage their ‘citizens’ to start driving more gas efficient cars, and when they did, the gubment whined, cried, pissed, and moaned because they weren’t getting enough gas tax? Makes me really want to move there.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
GuruMeditation
Posted on January 30, 2013 at 7:06am
I am seeing this on the highways in my area also. It’s time for Big Brother to find a better way to generate income without relying on the people breaking laws. They can’t have their cake and eat it at the same time. Now… eat your cake, or innovate, and find a more sure way of generating income. If they continue to rely on the people breaking laws to generate money, the laws will just get tighter and more authoritarian, eventually leading to a total police state. Then the pendulum will swing and they’ll really have their hands full.

So is it about law enforcement or generating income?

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
dontlookbehindthecurtain
Posted on January 30, 2013 at 6:02am
Sounds very familiar, Raise the fines? Raise Taxes? Raise the fines? and the revenues goes down. Sounds very very familiar!

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
HOLYSMOKES
Posted on January 30, 2013 at 5:53am
I thought Sacremento was going bankrupt so how do they have revenue left over from 2012?

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
Kerstile
Posted on January 30, 2013 at 5:29am
A few decades ago, a popular radio DJ in Philadelphia started a movement of random acts of kindness. He suggested his listeners carry a few quarters at all times while in the city. These quarters were to be placed into expired meters to “save” the evil parking offender the $15 (this was in the Eighties. Can’t imagine what the fine is today) parking ticket. He would play “The Beatles” “Meter Maid” song while promoting this idea. The city contacted him with a cease and desist or be arrested letter. His program was cutting into “revenues”. I left Philly and avoid going there at all costs. This is how you treat a sick government: leave, do not even go back to visit. Starve the beast. The bewildered comments by these cities elected morons are actually quite comical. It is so bad in Philly that they even made a TV show about “booting” and towing: “Parking Wars” What a great way to have your city regarded, eh? Just makes everybody want to come spend money there. /sarc

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
Junter
Posted on January 30, 2013 at 4:09am
LOL raise the fees and now they collect less revenue. Shows we have some real brains making the big decisions. I agree with other comenters. If illegal parking is tolerable then lower the fees to a reasonable rate and your revenue will go back up. Same with taxes.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
denkat56
Posted on January 30, 2013 at 2:48am
Get rid of your city’s freeloaders, people on food stamps, welfare, etc… If not send the monthly bill addressed the the boy king Obama, I’m sure he’ll help balance the city’s budget.

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- Junter
  Posted on January 30, 2013 at 4:13am
  California is in such a sorry state. I felt bad for my daughter who had to sit and clap for classmates who received special awards and incentives in front of the whole school for learning english in ESL. She and fellow english speaking classmates felt left out.If they are going to offer this than offer spanish or other languages to native english speakers. Lets make it fair.
  
  Report this comment
hellhavefury
Posted on January 30, 2013 at 2:37am
And who says Vampires aren’t real

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
The Village Idiot
Posted on January 30, 2013 at 1:26am
“They say the million-dollar loss will have little impact on 2013′s general fund because the city will be able to make up the difference by using some money left over from 2012′s budget,” the report notes.

********. When was the last time you had a crack-head say that ANY loss in revenue won’t have ANY impact on their life-style? Oh,… I forget, they just fins another somebody to rip-off some how.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
Eyeball
Posted on January 30, 2013 at 1:00am
Well just pass some more laws and make more people law breakers.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
waspanglosaxon
Posted on January 30, 2013 at 12:45am
It’s quite clear that the government at all levels is down on the law-abiding citizens. People who try to immigrate here legally face a waiting time of up to 20 years. But illegal aliens are catered to – by both parties.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
RDavis49
Posted on January 29, 2013 at 11:36pm
Isn’t that the purpose and general idea of the parking laws, to give people the incentive to stop breaking laws and park legally? How the hell did it ever get to the point of being about the money? Let me guess, “a liberal progressive, socialist democrat” in office….. It’s all about getting more and more money from the citizen instead of governing and leading ethically by being responsible stewards of the revenue you already collect….. Why people continue to vote you political socialist loons back into office year after year is a mystery even to God….

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- drs1969
  Posted on January 30, 2013 at 12:37am
  When you get past parking laws regarding blocking traffic or fire hydrants, it’s just a ‘money racket’.
  I haven’t been back to Va. Beach since 1995 when they stuck a $6 parking ticket on my car, for an expired meter. I’ve taken my business to Myrtle Beach(who has free parking) ever since. That’s thousands of dollars that gone to Myrtle Beach because of the greedy pigs sticking a $6 insult (tourist tax) on my windshield while I was on vacation.
  
  Report this comment
Lib Whisperer
Posted on January 29, 2013 at 11:27pm
Moved from Sacramento to Dallas 7 years ago and started a business with the equity I harvested pre-bubble.

Haven’t looked back.

Haven’t needed to. So far there are 4 families on my block who also moved from either Sacramento, Placer, or El Dorado counties.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
jman-6
Posted on January 29, 2013 at 10:54pm
All of us living in the Great Southern States need to start budgeting for a fence to keep the Sewer Rats from coming in after there done ruining their states! LOL!!

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- drs1969
  Posted on January 30, 2013 at 12:39am
  I second that motion!
  
  Report this comment
RaydocX
Posted on January 29, 2013 at 10:50pm
officials tacitly admitting that their capricious traffic fines represent a revenue stream upon which they depend, rather than a windfall?

yet another failed administrative decision… but too common, watching the horde of meter maids pouncing on vehicles…

here the worst are the parking spaces at the courthouse… new computers and a closed annex led to hours waits for a car tag… you have to go through metal detector and have your belongings xrayed to go… the meters max at 2 hours.

never fear, though, Sacramento can add a sales tax to medicinal weed sales… or a pooper scooper tax… or just hike the sales tax another point… the people supposedly voted for more taxes, after all… maybe a surtax on fuel, since it’s parking the money has to replace…

Feh

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
Ragnars Repos
Posted on January 29, 2013 at 10:25pm
All part of collectivist rot.

YOU will become a criminal. They will invent your crime, guaranteed. Slowly but surely, it becomes all about what is “necessary” to ensure the survival of the state. It is just a matter of time.

======> “If you make it easier for people to comply, they will,” said Chan <======

Then end of this road is them finding it "necessary" to kill you, BTW. They'll do it by a bullet, or some other high tech hardware, or by lack of food. But make no mistake, that's where this sort of thing ends.

This is not new. This has happened over, and over, and over again in human history.

Take power away from pols, or they enslave you, and kill you, every time, without fail. This fact of nature is exactly why the founders designed our system the way they did–no other reason.

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- drs1969
  Posted on January 30, 2013 at 12:44am
  Exactly. When they can’t extract anymore from the serfs, willingly, they start killing and taking. That’s why we have Obamacare. That’s also why they went after Palin for calling them on the ‘Death Panels’.
  We won’t have gulags or gas chambers. We’ll have ‘death panels’, just like merry old England.
  
  Report this comment
83plus
Posted on January 29, 2013 at 10:09pm
They make it sound like parking tickets are their biggest source of revenue.

/sarcasm Now that just makes me want to move there.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
theBru
Posted on January 29, 2013 at 10:04pm
Have always said, America’s Number One business is crime…lawyers make rules & laws so other lawyers can make money off of them…funny how most of the politicians are lawyers…bloodsuckers, every last one of them…

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
sandrunner
Posted on January 29, 2013 at 9:48pm
fee-gouging and greedy politicians abuse the power and it back fires.

and they want us to feel sorry for them. Go bite my a#&!

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- drs1969
  Posted on January 30, 2013 at 12:52am
  Have you paid your *ss Bitee’s Tax? If not, you will be charged a penalty, in addition to, the usual bitee’s tax.
  
  Report this comment

It appears that you have Javascript Disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser preferences for a better user experience on TheBlaze. You can not comment without Javascript enabled.