Town officials recently voided a $30 ticket that had been issued to a New Canaan woman after she parked in the Lumberyard Lot at the train station downtown without a permit.
Jennifer Frazer told members of the Parking Commission at their regular meeting last month that she rarely takes the train and usually catches it out of Stamford.
But on the morning of Jan. 5, “the day after a really big storm,” her four-wheel drive car was “slipping all over the roads,” Frazer said during the commission’s March 8 meeting, held at Town Hall.
“The parking lot was full, probably everybody had the same problem as me that day—they didn’t want to drive because it was too slippery,” Frazer said. “And I found one one tiny little spot to wedge in, between Suburbans.”
Frazer said she had just five minutes to catch her train, and entered space number ‘101’ in the machine because she couldn’t see what the space number was where she’d parked (there was none), didn’t leave the receipt in her windshield, and found the ticket later.
“I’m definitely into following the law and I did not know I was violating the law by parking there and I paid the $5,” she said.
Frazer said repeatedly that there were “no signs.”
Ultimately, commissioners Keith Richey, the volunteer group’s chairman, Chris Hering and Pam Crum voted to void the ticket, while Peter Ogilvie voted to uphold. The 3-1 vote means that Frazer doesn’t have to pay the $30 fine.
Parking Manager Stacy Miltenberg noted during the appeal hearing that single-day permits for the Richmond Hill or Talmadge Hill lots cost $7 now—they changed to that figure “a long time ago,” she said—and are no longer available for the Lumberyard Lot.
Richey during deliberations said Frazer “clearly paid the five bucks and now she knows the rule and so it was a one-off.”
Ogilvie responded: “Not a chance. I mean she has lived in town for years, she does not have a permit at all, she goes to a permit parking lot, she parks she doesn’t pay anything at all, she gets a ticket and then pays $5.”
When Hering noted that she paid at 9:32 a.m. for parking that expired at 11:59 a.m., under the hourly rates at the Lumberyard Lot, Ogilvie said: “We are not here to excuse ignorance.”
“I mean, it is remarkable,” he said. “She paid $5—she might as well have dropped it.”
Miltenberg noted that Frazer “just put in an arbitrary number” in terms of the space.
Crum said she voted to void in part because Frazer had no history of parking tickets.
Richey said he may feel differently if Frazer returned to the commission to appeal a similar violation.