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Here's one simple step on how to lose a city's morale and trust of city government, via Kerry Cavanaugh at the Daily News:
The council discussed adding scheduled street sweeping to 8,600 miles of city streets. By installing signs that indicate "no parking" during scheduled street-sweeping times, the city could establish regular, more effective sweeping - and, potentially, earn $20 million by ticketing cars parked during sweeping times. "We have a lot of opportunity in the street-cleaning arena to provide a lot of service and provide some additional revenue as well," said Bureau of Street Services General Manager Bill Robertson.
If this particular idea of increased street sweeping service was actually needed, then it would have been done a long time ago. But announcing this now only begets more cynics on parking enforcement. When someone says, "Tickets are only a way to create money for city hall," you can't fight that statement anymore, because now it's true.
Other revenue generating ideas include raising parking meter fees, a 911 surcharge, increased parking and traffic violation ticket fees, voluntary emergency medical fees, sales tax increase, transient occupancy tax increase (basically, a hotel tax) and an increase in document transfers for real estate.
Photo by lennonisgod via Flickr