Parking issues retold. Part 1.

The 600 block of N Water Street is a busy place during the day. Not so busy at night except on Friday and Saturday late, when the weird club is open. The city in its wisdom has seen fit, for as long as I've been working downtown, to forbid parking between 3:30 and 5:30 pm so the street is clear for rush hour (as if we have any) traffic. In theory, though unnecessary, this is fine. But in practice it is not workable nor fair.

I have worked downtown for more than 30 years. For the last 25 or so I have had a window office on the second floor that faces the corner of Water and Wisconsin. Somehow, and what seems like suddenly, though in fact it's been several years, the parking checkers have multiplied like rabbits, or maybe lice is a better word. One day it just dawned on me that we had a much larger force and they were vicious about their job. If you park downtown and your meter expires, you WILL have a parking ticket. And if you come out in the course of the ticket being written, you have no chance of talking him or her out of it.