Published: August 29, 2008 11:38 pm            

No parking on grass — even your own

BLUEFIELD — When a police cruiser stopped at her residence Friday morning, Judy Silbaugh automatically assumed something bad had happened.

However, her fear turned to confusion when she learned she was being ticketed for having her vehicle parked in the grass in her own front yard. Because her house was being painted, Silbaugh had to make additional room for the painter’s vehicle which was also parked at her residence. Silbaugh was told she was in violation of a city ordinance by having her car parked in the grass.

“It (the car) was up close to my house in the yard,” Silbaugh said. “I got a ticket for parking in my yard while having some painting done. They also ticketed the gentleman’s car who was helping us.”

The ordinance in question has been in the books for several years, and isn’t intended to punish those who park in the grassy front of their yards for a short period of time. It is intended to address those who make parking in their front yard permanent, Mayor Linda Whalen said.

“Where we get most of the problem is where we have rental property, and there are multitudes of people living in the house,” Whalen said. “This isn’t a big problem with single family occupancies. But I have noticed in the past few weeks that College (Avenue) has gotten particularly bad with people parking in their yards.”

Whalen said if a ticket is issued in error, those who receive a ticket should contact Police Chief Joe Wilson. Whalen said the police department will attempt to work with those citizens who receive a ticket in error.

“Everybody parks in their yard temporarily at one time or another,” Whalen said. “This ordinance isn’t meant to address just a temporary situation. This is for when it becomes a permanent problem. If someone was issued a ticket, and it was a temporary parking situation, I think all they need to do is contact our police chief and work with him.”

Wilson said several tickets were issued Friday for individuals who were parked in the grass in the front of residential yards.

“They wrote several,” Wilson said. “If they (the officers) see a violation, they can enforce it. As far as I know it (the ordinance) has been around for a while. It’s been enforced before, and it continues to be enforced. We’ve done a lot with abandoned vehicles. We’ve worked very hard on the abandoned vehicles.”

After contacting the Daily Telegraph, Silbaugh said she received a return call from a city employee who told her the ticket was being dismissed.

“They called back from the city and told me to disregard the ticket,” Silbaugh said late Friday afternoon. “But the whole thing is something that shouldn’t have happened in the first place.”

Whalen also called the Daily Telegraph back Friday to confirm the situation had been resolved.

— Contact Charles Owens at cowens@bdtonline.com

        

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