RESPONSE BY DAVID THOMAS — I have lived in the City since 1986 and have watched the parking policy evolve with the development of Metro and shopping areas. In my opinion, parking has and will continue to be an issue, and I do not believe the City of Hyattsville will actually do anything to fix it. Oh sure, the council will spend hours discussing this issue. They’ll appoint this committee and that committee , get citizens’ input and spend countless hours to pass regulations and law, but I don’t believe they have the intention of enforcing it.
The city may require that citizens purchase parking stickers for their cars or risk tickets or (for the repeat offender) worse. Wait, they did that … the city collected our monies and we placed our stickers on our cars. But this very moment, I can walk around my block and find that a handful of cars in my neighborhood do not comply.
I bring this issue to the attention to both of my city council members and the mayor at least two to three times a year. Once or twice a year I’ll see the parking enforcement officer (and the city’s fancy electric vehicle) cruise through the neighborhood (right past cars in violation) and without a pause and move on. City staff speak of reducing the two hour parking grace period to 15 minutes. Whether 15 minutes, two hours, two days, two weeks, two months, and I dare say two years, the city lacks proper enforcement.
Here are my suggested solutions:
- Refund the monies spent for compliance (since in my opinion nothing is done anyway) and we will all figure it out ourselves.
- Enforce the existing laws, regulations, and see how that works out.
David Thomas is a Hyattsville resident.
