“Hooked on Tickets” (more on fines & fees)

As a follow up to my last post, in this post I’ll chat a little about Ken Grant’s and my visit last Wednesday evening to the Highlands Bunker. Located “deep in the belly of the Delaware (way) beast,” Highlands Bunker is the namesake of a podcast hosted by Rob Vanella, perhaps Delaware’s most prominent rabble rouser, and belies the assertion that Delaware activism is an oxymoron.

The episode that came out of last Wednesday’s session is called Hooked on Tickets. The summary of the show states: Public Policy Advocate Ken Grant and Professor Steve Metraux join Rob in the bunker to talk about their newest report on parking and red light tickets and how it shows a core dysfunction in the way that the City of Wilmington conducts some of its most basic functions.

I mentioned the report on parking, Fines & Fees Collection and Enforcement In Wilmington, Delaware, that I wrote (with Hoda Bazzi) last year in the previous blog entry. We didn’t, however, go much into what was actually in the report.

Briefly, in the first part, me and co-author Hoda Bazzi piece together whatever budget data we were able to pry from Wilmington’s notoriously opaque city government to conclude that a) the levels of fines and fees collection has increased substantially over the past two decades; b) the City collects revenue from parking tix and red-light violations at a rate that is more than twice as high as the national average; and c) this is an inefficient process in which less than half of each fines and fees dollar goes into general revenue. We also analyzed a survey administered by local activists which, despite data flaws, indicates that, like in many other cities, there is substantial racial inequity in who in Wilmington is most burdened by these tickets.

In the podcast episode, Grant provided details of some of the more lurid dysfunction related to (until recently) the lack of a working appeals process for these tickets, and towing procedures that spawned an ongoing federal lawsuit alleging unconstitutional search and seizure. Ken spins an engaging narrative and has a knack for street (sic) theater, for which parking in Wilmington provides much fodder.

In our episode, Ken’s material took front stage and I provided rhythm in laying out the shaky structural foundations based upon material in the report. Rob, who has a good instinct for extracting key issues from the easy conversation, hung on to the dependency metaphor that bubbled up to frame this situation. With the City being unable to effectively manage this process but also unable to walk away from it, this has become a mess, indeed reminiscent of an addiction. This situation, the origins of which preceded this current administration and the effects of which will almost certainly outlast this administration, is one that has indeed left the City “hooked on tickets.”