Like many others, it’s not often I go out of my way to complain about injustices that don’t personally effect me, but this is one of those rare cases where I make an exception.
Jacksonville Oregon held their city wide garage sale last weekend, where people came from many counties to participate in hunting for some second hand treasures. being a garage sale lover I drove down from Grants Pass to see what kinds of treasures I could find.
Because Jacksonville is small town with limited parking, a large percentage of those who attended this event naturally assumed law enforcement would be be suspending some of the no parking rules next to the sellers booths since there did not appear to be any other parking provisions, and consequently many parked their cars on the edge of the roads overflowing into the bicycle lanes. Sadly, the Jacksonville police made no such exceptions for the parking problem and used it as an opportunity to pass out dozens of parking tickets all over town.
Even though I had not received a ticket myself, it infuriated me to see such rigged parking rules when it was clearly a time when they should have made some allowances. Had the traffic been seriously impeded it might have been a ticket-able offense, but I did not see any serious problems other than the ones created by the Jacksonville police and the city officials who make the laws.
After I complained to one of the police officers he reminded me he is not responsible for the laws, but his job is to enforce them. As much as I understand his position this kind of response troubled me as it removes any personal accountability for his actions, and I wonder what ever happened to principles of doing what’s right in spite of the rules?
If Jacksonville publicizes another citywide garage sale I hope the city officials use better judgment in the future, and I wish more police officers had the fortitude to stand up for moral principles rather than the letter of the law.
David Maltz
Parking Violation Enforcement Criticism Lacks Validity
In late August, I spoke with Jacksonville’s city manager (Jeff Alvis) concerning a maintenance issue. My complaint was that roadside vegetation had overgrown a 100-yard stretch of Jacksonville’s Oregon Street bike lane creating a hazard. The offending vegetation had been cut by the next morning. In a follow up conversation with Mr. Alvis, he stated that public safety was the top priority of his administration.
This leads me to this letter and to the Mail Tribune front page article of September 16th. In both, individuals criticized the City, and its police department, for issuing parking citations during Jacksonville’s annual two-day yard sale event.
I used the N. 5th. Street and N. Oregon Street sections of the bike path on both of those days. At both locations, I was forced out of the bike lane and into the roadway, by multiple vehicles illegally parked in the bike lane. This forced me to compete for space in heavy traffic (congestion caused by the yard-sale event itself). In most cases, there was a legal parking space available across the street ( vacant lots associated with closed businesses) or on side streets a short distance away.
To criticize City of Jacksonville officials for meeting the most fundamental responsibility of government (public safety) is, I think, grossly misguided.