Residents upset over parking violations

TOLEDO, Ohio - Although not outlined in the city charter, a city memo has allowed workers with the city of Toledo’s Division of Streets, Bridges and Harbor to issue parking citations to citizens.

It was learned over the weekend that Susan Frederick, acting commissioner with streets, bridges and harbor, fined several motorists for parking in their driveways on Holland-Sylvania near Dorr Street.

"I've lived here 43 years and last Thursday we had our 44th wedding anniversary," said Charles Robertson, who received a parking violation. "I got a present from the city. Isn't that nice?"

Residents' vehicles were parked on a turn-around portion of their driveway in front of their property, something they need to safely get out of their drive on Holland-Sylvania, which, at times, can be busy.

Megan Robson, spokesperson for Mayor Carty Finkbeiner, released a statement to the media Monday evening.

"The Commissioner of Streets, Bridges and Harbor responded by going to the location of the complaint to assess whether it was valid or not," Robson said in the statement. "She personally observed that it was a valid complaint. She observed several illegally parked vehicles along the first street she visited."

"While there, a neighbor asked her to check out his street, which also had a number of illegally parked vehicles. Once she observed they too were illegally parked, she cited them as well. The City of Toledo supports its laws in general and illegally parked vehicles can and will be ticketed, and these tickets are considered valid."

The city fined residents $25.

Mayor Finkbeiner said residents who were ticketed in fact broke the law for parking on a part of a drive that was not paved. He stood by Frederick, who wrote the violations.

"Every law in the city should be enforced and I will defer to the director over the media, that's for dag-gone sure," Mayor Finkbeiner said Monday during a news conference for the city's latest model block project. "I will not second guess her because more times than not she's right and the citizens that are criticizing her are not right."

"He made the statement that more times than not we are the ones that are wrong," said Shelly Cousino, who also received a parking violation ticket. "What we were wrong in doing is electing him again."

Councilman Collins met with residents and collected the tickets. He assured the problem would be resolved. He said Tuesday that the tickets were an abuse of power.

"If we have time for this Mickey Mouse nonsense something is radically wrong with that," Councilman Collins said.
 

FOX Toledo's Michelle Zepeda contributed to this report)