Chris Hering

Town Upholds New Canaan Woman’s $25 Parking Ticket

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The Parking Commission at its most recent meeting voted 4-1 to uphold a $25 ticket for a New Canaan woman who had overstayed in a Main Street space for about a half-hour. 

Heidi McEvoy told members of the Commission during an appeal hearing that she’s a longtime volunteer at New Canaan Library and that on the Monday morning in question, she headed in to assist with a twice-yearly children’s book sale and “the library lot was full.”

“In fact, it was so full that there were cars parked in areas marked ‘no parking’—and that’s quite a common occurrence,” McEvoy said during her appeal hearing, held March 14 at Town Hall. 

“A lot of people use the library lot to stay and do their library shopping in town and they never move. And the library does not do much about enforcing that. But in any event, when I first arrived, there were no spaces in the library parking lot, so I went around the lot three or four times and still couldn’t find one, and parked on Main Street and then later on after I had finished my stint at the library I came out and saw the parking meter lady putting a ticket on my car and I said, ‘But I am here.’ She said, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t do anything about it— I have already written the ticket.’ And my defense is that I have put in a lot of time in at New Canaan Library and made lot of money for the library at the book sales and if not there isn’t parking in the library parking lot, which I can’t control and they don’t enforce it, I don’t think the library volunteers should be charged for parking tickets. Now if you look at my record, I think I have had one parking ticket in all of my 50 years that I have lived in New Canaan. And I am quite responsible.

Government

Town Upholds $150 Ticket for New Canaan Woman Who Parked in Disabled Space

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The Parking Commission voted 4-0 at its most recent meeting to uphold a $150 ticket issued to a New Canaan woman who had parked in a disabled space on Elm Street. 

Sandra Rama told members of the Commission during their March 14 meeting that she had a “handicapped parking sticker up until November” following a hip replacement one year ago, “so I am very aware of not parking in a handicapped spot.”

Yet at about 3:46 p.m. on Jan. 8, she received a ticket for parking in the disabled space at Elm and Main Streets. “I pulled up and, you know, there has been a lot of changes to Elm Street and it’s very not marked,” Rama said during her appeal hearing, held at Town Hall. “There’s no lines between the spots and I actually backed up so that someone could pull in front of me and that was actually the right spot to be in, in front of where I was. I didn’t really see the sign.”

Ultimately, Commissioners Keith Richey, Pam Crum, Peter Ogilvie and Stuart Stringfellow voted to uphold the ticket.

Around Town

Town Upholds $50 Ticket for Double-Parking Woman on Elm Street 

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The Parking Commission at its most recent meeting voted 4-1 to uphold a $50 ticket for a Norwalk woman who double-parked on Elm Street. Michelle Santiago told Commissioners during her appeal hearing that she’d just left the People’s Bank parking lot on the afternoon of Friday, Feb. 1, turned right and right again onto Elm while she waited for a space so she could get lunch at Pinocchio Pizza. “I was there three minutes, just waiting for a parking spot,” Santiago said during the Commission’s March 14 meeting, held at Town Hall. “The parking attendant comes behind me, I noticed her behind me, she had gotten out of her car, she was checking other cars, then she got back in her car, so I moved up to see maybe she was marking cars with her stick and then after I’d say a minute and then she comes around and gives me a ticket, tells me I was double-parked.

Around Town

0684-Radi0: Pay for Parking on Elm?

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This week on ‘0684-Radi0’ (hit ‘Listen in Browser’ above on your smartphone), we explore an idea from Parking Commissioner Peter Ogilvie. This installment of 0684-Radi0 is sponsored by April Kaynor and Kelly DeFrancesco, luxury property specialists with William Raveis Real Estate.

Chris Hering

Town Upholds $150 for Woman Who Parked in Disabled Space on Elm Street

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Town officials this month upheld a $150 ticket issued to a Wilton woman who had parked in a space on Elm Street designated for disabled people. 

Marie Donahue during her appeal hearing told members of the Parking Commission that a FedEx truck was parked next to the space, located in front of the Playhouse and designated only by a sign and not by blue paint in the street itself, when she pulled up on the morning of Dec. 28. “I passed the truck and the truck was apparently obstructing the handicapped sign,” she said during the Jan. 10 hearing, held at Town Hall. “So yes, I was parked there but I did not see the sign.