Town officials last week voided a $35 ticket issued to a local woman who’d pulled into one of the permitted spots in the Park Street Lot thinking it was free.
During a May 6 appeal hearing before the Parking Commission, Lilly Kong said that she understood the entire Park Street Lot to be free.
“It’s a very consistent message saying ‘park in the Park Street Lot, it’s three hours free’ and I have that imprinted in my mind, so the day I parked there I just saw the sign,” Kong told the Commission during the hearing, held at Town Hall and via videoconference.
However, the row of spaces along the northern edge of the lot are for permit-holders only — a fact that had been spelled out on signs in the lot, but not specified on a prior version of the town’s “parking map” posted online.
Kong said that after she got the ticket, she went to parking officials and noted that the map didn’t account for the permitted spaces in the Park Street Lot.
That town parking map has since been updated.
Commission Chair Nancy Bemis, Secretary Kevin Karl and members Katie O’Neill and Marley Thackray voted 4-0 to void the ticket.
“If we made changes [to the map] because of her appeal, I think we should void her ticket,” Karl said during the appointed body’s deliberations.
Kong said during the hearing that she had no intention of breaking any rules after moving to New Canaan five years ago, and added that “I can’t miss anything” with respect to the recently updated parking system in New Canaan “because it’s everywhere, all the communications.”
“There’s no excuse for not knowing it,” she said.
Bemis thanked Kong for taking the time to appeal her ticket and for making the effort to notify the town about the map.
“Some of these nuances do fall through the cracks, and I do understand,” Bemis said.