Government

Man on Crutches Gets Town To Void $150 Ticket for Parking in Handicapped Space

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Town officials last week voided a $150 ticket issued to a man who parked in a handicapped space at the New Canaan Post Office though he had no such permit at the time. Gordon Thurber told members of the Parking Commission during a public hearing that he circled the Post Office three times trying to find a parking spot on the afternoon of Tuesday April 17 but “there wasn’t a place to park within three-quarters of a mile.”

Thurber needed to drop into the Post Office to file his taxes that day, and said he’s been unable to walk without crutches since having an accident (a hip replacement is needed, he said) “so I pulled into the handicapped spot” and “and less than five minutes later” there was a ticket on the windshield, he said at the May 10 appeal hearing, held in Town Hall. The ticket for parking illegally in a handicapped zone is by far the most severe in New Canaan and the commission in the past has never voided it, as a rule. Yet in this case, Chairman Keith Richey and Commissioners Stuart Stringfellow and Chris Hering voted to void. Commissioners Pam Crum and Peter Ogilvie voted to uphold, making it a 3-2 vote in Thurber’s favor.

Government

Parking Commission Votes 3-2 To Uphold $30 Ticket for New Canaan Man Who Parked in Loading Zone

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Town officials last week voted 3-2 to uphold a $30 ticket for a man who admitted that he parked in a designated loading zone but said it was an honest mistake and he didn’t know about the rule there. Bob Landeck identified himself to members of the Parking Commission as a town resident for 22 years, and said he had parked out front of the former Thali building on Main Street on a Saturday to run into the People’s Bank for a few minutes. “I went to use the ATM machine and when I got back, he wrote me up,” Landeck told the Commission during a May 10 hearing on the ticket, held at Town Hall. “Now I think since it’s a brand new sign, I think maybe they should put a yellow thing on the curb, because now i notice the sign, but I did not notice a sign when I parked there.”

Ultimately, Commissioners Pam Crum, Chris Hering and Peter Ogilvie voted to uphold the ticket, while Chairman Keith Richey and Stuart Stringfellow voted to void. During deliberations, Ogilvie said: “I think all parking violations are honest mistakes and that is what [Parking Manager] Stacy [Miltenberg] makes her business out of.”

He added: “It’s not as though the sign was hiding behind something.”

Crum said: “There was no reason not to see it.”

The area directly in front of Thali, or the old “bank building” as many New Canaanites know it, has been a designated loading zone for more than two years.

Government

Town Forgives $30 Ticket for Woman Who Parked in Lumberyard Lot without a Permit

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Town officials recently voided a $30 ticket that had been issued to a New Canaan woman after she parked in the Lumberyard Lot at the train station downtown without a permit. Jennifer Frazer told members of the Parking Commission at their regular meeting last month that she rarely takes the train and usually catches it out of Stamford. But on the morning of Jan. 5, “the day after a really big storm,” her four-wheel drive car was “slipping all over the roads,” Frazer said during the commission’s March 8 meeting, held at Town Hall. “The parking lot was full, probably everybody had the same problem as me that day—they didn’t want to drive because it was too slippery,” Frazer said.

Government

‘I Am Here Because I Don’t Think This Is Fair’: Woman Who Took Up Two Spaces Downtown Argues Her Way Out of $30 Ticket

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Officials recently voided a $30 ticket issued to a Darien woman who admitted that she had obstructed two spaces in parking at Morse Court. Yet Alexandra Eising told members of the Parking Commission during an appeal hearing that she was forced to park over the line because the car next to her already was parked that way and she didn’t want someone else pulling in and dinging her two-week-old vehicle. Eising said she’d been in a rush to get to an 11 a.m. class at Go Figure and pulled into one of the straight spots up against the Mobil station. “I was rushing to get to my class and the car on the right side of me was so far over, so I parked far over because I didn’t want them to open their door into my car,” she said at the March 8 hearing, held in Town Hall. “So when I came back I was five minutes late, I got a late fine—which I deserved, because I was five minutes late—but I also got I took up two spots, so I said, Well that’s funny because my wheel is on the line.

Government

‘This Is Not the Year’: Parking Commission Divided on Whether To Raise Rates of Commuter Lot Permits

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As New Canaan faces threats of reduced service on its rail line and the likelihood of devalued real property and increased taxes, it should reduce the fees for permits to park in commuter lots this year, according to one member of the Parking Commission. According to Chris Hering, if New Canaan looks considers its “optics” relative to comparable towns—at “our competitive towns, arguably,” he told fellow commissioners at their regular meeting March 14—then it makes sense to help commuters. Told that doing so would deprive the town of a ready source of revenue, Hering said: “You are basically telling everyone that earns money in this town, that goes and pays for parking, you are going to tell them, ‘Hey, why don’t you move to Darien? It’s another $400 cheaper.’ ”

He proposed a 20 percent reduction to the rates, but found no support from fellow commissioners. Ultimately, the four commissioners who attended the meeting at Town Hall—Hering, Chairman Keith Richey, Pam Crum and Peter Ogilvie (Stuart Stringfellow was absent)—could reach no consensus on whether to reduce or raise the rates, or keep them flat.