these sounds are from the richard j. daley center at dearborn and washington.

there is a long story behind why i was at the daley center today. i usually reserve my venting for friends and leave my weblog for sounds and the description of sounds. today though, i feel that i must somehow make this a public venting.

it begins september 23rd of 2002. i drove to work, which i rarely do when it's warm outside. i parked on clark street, at a meter, near a ton of other cars. i deposited my $2.00 in quarters so that i could park there for 2 hours. there were about 8 other cars parked behind mine, also at meters. i went to take care of some business. i came back outside when there was still 15 minutes left on my meter, intending to deposit more coins. instead i came outside to a city tow truck about to tow my car. i noted some parking tickets on my windshield. i was in disbelief and extremely upset that my car was about to be towed. there was absolutely NO reason for my car being towed or for the tickets, i was parked legally and i don't have a large number of unpaid tickets or anything of that nature. lucky for me the tow truck person was understanding and reasonable. he explained to me what the tickets were for. according to him, the city was about to begin resurfacing of clark street. the meter enforcers had come around 30 minutes earlier and put "no parking" signs up on every meter along clark street in the river north area. while they were putting up the signs on the meters, they wrote tickets to the cars parked at each meter for being in violation of the sign. after they wrote tickets for all the cars on each stretch of block, they called in the city tow trucks to come and tow all cars with tickets on clark street. the tow truck guy told me the reason my car hadn't been towed yet was because it was the last one on the block. all the cars previously behind me had been towed away to the city lot where it costs around $80.00 to retrieve it. he was nice. he agreed that there was absolutely no way i could have known not to park there, he even commented on the injustice of it all and mentioned the 15 minutes still left on my meter. he let me go get my keys and come move my car instead of towing it. i asked him what i should do about the tickets and he said if i write a letter to the city and send it with the tickets that the city will surely dismiss them. so i wrote my letter explaining the situation and sent it off.

months later, in january of 2003 i get a letter from the city which said, "It is the finding of the Administrative Law Officer that the information submitted does not support a determination that the required signs were missing or obscured on the date of the violation. Entered: DENNIS E GUEST #037 01/04/2003" the letter gave me the option of either just paying the ticket within 21 days or appealing in person within 35 days at the circuit court of cook county. i decide to take some time during my lunch hour and go appeal this ticket. when i got there i was told that it would cost me a very large court fee to appeal the ticket. the letter they sent neglected to mention anything about a court fee. the court fee is MORE than the original ticket, but as the lady at the court pointed out to me, it is now a few days past the 21 day period in which to pay the ticket so my fine is automatically doubled. this makes the court fee for an appeal actually about $20 less than the ticket with the past 21 day fee. however, if i go ahead and appeal the ticket, i am out the court fee and there is no guarantee that i will actually win the appeal. the woman at the court with whom i spoke happened to think i would probably not win the appeal and that it is better to just pay the ticket. either way, they get some money from me.

02/05/03 13:22
the court fee you pay to get justice. mp3 = 00:00:09

02/05/03 13:27
the elevator you take after you realize that there is no justice. mp3 = 00:00:05

02/05/03 13:31
the daley center lobby. a band is setting up to play some music, a ton of people are milling around doing what seems to be nothing, a police officer talking to another police officer while pushing one end of his handcuffs through the other side, making a very cool noise. i bet he just can't wait to get out there and give out some more parking tickets. mp3 = 00:01:39