The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. – HL Mencken, In Defense of Women
The latest assault on liberty and property rights here in Anchorage is a proposal to allow code enforcement officers to ticket and then tow abandoned vehicles so as to clear the streets for snow plows. So far, so good, right? Or is it?
If passed, this will be the final step in the repeal of Proposition 3, the ordinance that shut down predatory ticket writing by the Parking Authority and Mark Begich’s Photo Radar scam 21 years ago, essentially turning law enforcement into revenue generation, aka tax farming. https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/anchorage/2019/01/17/abandoned-cars-litter-anchorage-streets-authorities-want-to-change-the-law-and-tow-more-of-them/
This time around, the charter amendment will allow code enforcement officers to write tickets, get vehicles towed, and the Muni to garnish PFD payments to pay for fines and towing fees.
One of the reasons we were successful passing the proposition 21 years ago was the public anger at an aggressive and intrusive Parking Authority. They were charged with bringing in money to the Muni, and with the combination of aggressive predatory ticket writers and a kangaroo court style appeals process (nobody ever won an appeal), we figured they were bringing a good $2 million dollars yearly in cash into the front door which was distributed to a variety of recipients downtown by the time the proposition passed. The Assembly and Mayor at the time refused to do a forensic audit of the operation so nobody ever publicly knew how much money was flowing through it.
Should Anchorage embrace this charter amendment, we will start traveling once again down the path of predatory law enforcement for fun and profit.
One of the underlying reasons for the Ferguson MO riots in 2014 was that the single party democrat government turned its law enforcement operation into a piggy bank, nailing the citizenry with a blizzard of tickets for code violations followed by large caliber court fees when they didn’t pay those tickets on time. At the time of the riots they were raising over $3 million / year in tickets and fines. The citizenry rightfully took it out on the tax collectors (local police). It wasn’t about the cops being racist at all. It was all about turning the cops into tax collectors. https://www.cnn.com/2015/03/06/us/ferguson-missouri-racism-tickets-fines/index.html
Chicago also turned vehicle towing and impound into a cash cow, issuing tickets, seizing vehicles, towing vehicles, and selling them should the owner not respond in time, bringing $17 million in fines, fees and sales April 2017 – April 2018. https://reason.com/archives/2018/04/25/chicago-debt-impound-cars-innocent
This is where the Assembly and the Mayor want to take us, to the land of vehicles in driveways getting ticketed and towed. And who ends up enforcing this when the tickets aren’t paid in a timely manner? The very same APD which is fully on board with the charter amendment because writing tickets for towing abandoned vehicles is somehow beneath them. The very same APD that will bear the brunt of public anger at what is inevitable.
One of the arguments we made 21 years ago was that the well justified anger at law enforcement being used to generate a revenue stream was that it would inevitably lead to disrespect for the law itself and the actual people who enforced the law. How can you possibly respect the people who are calling you a criminal and stealing your property? The Ferguson riots proved that.
The problem with turning law enforcement into a revenue stream is the constant pressure to increase the size of that revenue stream. Once you embrace law enforcement for profit, there will always be pressure on the ticket writers to write more tickets. There will always be pressure to reduce the ability of the targeted citizen to dispute and successfully win that dispute in whatever judicial process is attached to the new flow of tickets. There are a lot of small towns in the south that made a very good living for decades running predatory speed traps on unsuspecting motorists. Some got into the business of seizing vehicles on the way through town.
Sooner or later, usually much sooner, you end up with a predatory group of ticket writers, a kangaroo court appeals system, and little respect by the citizenry being targeted for law enforcement, the judicial system, or the system of laws both are supposed to support.
We all ought to know better than to support this. We should know what is coming for local police, as it is a predictable as night following day. We saw it 21 years ago here in Anchorage as people started attacking photo radar vehicles. Don’t go down this path. It will damage all of us. And for what? A little more money for local politicians?
Alex Gimarc lives in Anchorage since retiring from the military in 1997. His interests include science and technology, environment, energy, economics, military affairs, fishing and disabilities policies. His weekly column “Interesting Items” is a summary of news stories with substantive Alaska-themed topics. He is a small business owner and Information Technology professional.
