View Full Version : dialysis driver victim of parking ticket gets pol's sympathy


Laura
01-11-2008, 05:58 PM
from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle at http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categories/category.php?category_id=27&id=17752
Brooklyn Councilman Goes After City For ‘Insensitive’ Parking Ticket
by Brooklyn Eagle (edit@brooklyneagle.net), published online 01-10-2008

The Bay Ridge Councilman is demanding the parking enforcement agency and the Finance Department show some compassion and dismiss the $115 parking ticket given to a constituent who received the violation after picking up his legally blind, 85-year-old wife from a health treatment center.

Mrs. Iannicelli, who suffers from diabetes, had just come from dialysis treatment and was too weak to walk a long distance. To assist her, Mr. Iannicelli doubled-parked his car near the front of the facility. While walking his ailing wife back to the vehicle, a parking agent placed a $115 parking ticket onto Mr. Iannicelli's car.

“This is yet another example of the city's insatiable appetite for revenue,” said Gentile. “The city must stop filling its coffers off of the backs of honest and hard working New Yorkers. Mr. Iannicelli was merely assisting his disabled, legally blind wife into the vehicle, when the traffic enforcement agent, totally devoid of discretion and compassion, drove up and slapped a $115 ticket on Mr. Iannicelli's windshield. When is enough, enough? When is our City going to realize that we must treat residents like partners, not targets with bulls-eyes painted on their backs? I call for the dismissal of Mr. Iannicelli's summons and a more compassionate approach to enforcing the laws in this city,” Gentile concluded.

This is not the first time Gentile has asked for the dismissal of an unscrupulous parking summons. In 2006, the councilman assisted Rev. Cletus Forson, of St. Andrew the Apostle Church in the Bay Ridge. Rev. Forson was ticketed as he responded to an emergency call from a parishioner afraid her mother would die without receiving her last rights.

“I see examples of this all the time. Here we have a city agency that is all about the dollars and cents. But this is people's lives and wellbeing we're talking about,” Gentile said.

© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2007

Laura
01-11-2008, 06:02 PM
from The Daily News http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/01/11/2008-01-11_daily_news_readers_vow_to_pay_parking_ti-1.html
Daily News readers vow to pay parking ticket for man with disabled wife
BY TRACY CONNOR
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Friday, January 11th 2008, 4:00 AM
The plight of an elderly man slapped with a parking ticket while helping his blind wife out of a dialysis clinic touched a nerve with Daily News readers - and some generously offered to pay the $115 summons.
"I thought it was disgusting," said Tony Aromando, 49, a construction worker from the Bronx. "These people don't have the time or the money to fight this."
Eugene Iannicelli, 84, got hit with the fine Dec. 19 after he couldn't find a parking spot close to the medical office in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn, where his wife Mary, 83, undergoes kidney dialysis three times a week.
He reluctantly double-parked, and while he was opening the door for his frail wife, a traffic enforcement agent rolled up and wrote the summons - ignoring his pleas for leniency.
The News' story yesterday spurred dozens of readers to write in with their own parking-ticket horror stories, vent their outrage at the couple's plight - and ask how they could pay the fine.
"Instead of going to work, I wanted to go straight to Brooklyn and help these people," said Carmen Nieves, a paralegal from Westchester.
The Iannicellis were moved by the support from perfect strangers. "I'm overwhelmed," the husband said. "Tongue-tied."
Councilman Vincent Gentile (D-Bay Ridge) and Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan) contacted the NYPD and the Department of Finance to ask that the ticket be dismissed.
The NYPD maintains that once an agent writes a ticket, it's up to the judge to toss it. But Finance Department spokesman Owen Stone said judges have no discretion.
"They can't dismiss a ticket for a reason other than that a violation didn't occur," he said.
With Matthew Lysiak