'Abuse of power'

TOLEDO, Ohio - Toledo City Councilman D. Michael Collins said Tuesday that the city authorizing employees within the Streets, Bridges and Harbor Division to issue parking citations to citizens is an abuse of power.

Over the weekend numerous residents on Holland-Sylvania near Dorr Street in the city's south end were fined $25 by Acting Commissioner Susan Frederick for parking their vehicles in the front of their property.

"This ticket was never defined nor the authority was ever given by city council in the city of Toledo to walk on private property and execute a citation," Councilman Collins said, who represents District 2.

Frederick ticketed motorists after a fellow citizen complained about the way residents were parking their vehicles. Residents said she walked onto private property to ticket their vehicles for being parked in a turnaround off their driveway near the front of their property.

The section of the driveways in question where the vehicles were parked is unpaved. In 1991 the city passed an ordinance that requires vehicles on private property to be parked on a paved drive.

"A quiet, little old man never raised a cane with anybody and I got a gift," said Charles Robertson, who received one of the many parking tickets from Frederick.

Councilman Collins said in 2007, city council did give employees inside Streets, Bridges, and Harbor power to write tickets, but on city streets.

The move was meant as a time saver so the police department would not have to be called out to ticket vehicles that needed to be moved off city streets when the city swept streets or removed snow during the winter months.

Mayor Carty Finkbeiner said the tickets written by Frederick and her department are valid and have to be paid.

"They broke the law. That's why you write a ticket," Mayor Finkbeiner said.

The Finkbeiner administration denies the parking fines are a way to collect money to help defray the city's over $15 million budget deficit.

Collins collected the $25 tickets Monday after meeting with his constituents and will pay the fines if he has to. He added if his constituents wanted to appeal, they would not be able to because the complaints board residents would have to go through has been dissolved.

"Dealing in an environment we live in, the city of Toledo with the head of the community being Carleton S. Finkbeiner, he is never wrong and those who worship him it's like the movie 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest'," Councilman Collins said. "They find an attraction and an affinity for one another."

Since FOX Toledo News first reported on this story June 12, it has gained national media attention with stories on DrudgeReport.com and CNN.com.

"They think they can write any law, enforce any public policy, do virtually anything they want in order to satify their voracious need for cash," said FOX News Channel Judicial Analyst Andrew Napolitano Tuesday on Studio B with Sheppard Smith.

After appearing on Studio B, Napolitano joined FOX Toledo News in our Talk Back segment. He had some tough talk for Mr. Finkbeiner.

"The government absolutely does not have the right to come on your property because it doesn't approve of the material make up of your driveway unless the driveway was impairing someone else's property," Napolitano told FOX Toledo's Shaun Hegarty.

"So, for this administration to decide, probably because it needs money like all government do today, but it's going to harass peaceful law abiding private property owners by coming on their private property to see if their driveway is secure enough is not only absurd, it's against the law and all these citations should be thrown out if they are not rescinded."

(FOX Toledo's Michelle Zepeda contributed to this report)