Parking Wienies in Portland

I live across from a "Community School", a sort of gifted and talented pre-school for faculty and students at PSU. It costs $1,000.mo/child for tuition and $700/mo for students at PSU. Some parents have up to three kids enrolled.

Every night, for the last three nights, I have watched the "Meter Maid" come by at 5:00 PM and give out $20 parking tickets to the parents running in to get their children. The zone sign says "15 Minuter Parking" for the four spaces in front of the school (pickup zone?). The front door to get your kid is 14 feet away, the meter to get you 25 cent ticket (for the maximum 15 minutes) is half a block away.

Many people pay...but take 20 minutes to get their kid. They get a ticket. Some do not pay, run in and get their kid. They get a ticket. At 4:45 the Meter Maid is waiting.

The metered parking expires at 7:00 PM (free after 7:00 PM). I've seen the Meter Maid outside a high rise condo, a block away, writing tickets at 6:55 PM. Now they want to add 50¢/hr in fees to park and extend the metered time to 9:00 PM.

Some folks have 20 to 30 parking stickers on their drivers windows (to confuse the idiot Meter Maid? The maid has a scanner device, like a UPS reader, that reads the sticker to see if it is valid or expired.

Granted she is just "doing her job", but one has to ask if the city is really in that much of a bind financially, that Meter Maids have to circle parking spaces like a hungry hawk over a meadow of field mice!