News

Illegal Sunday parking causes Facebook kerfuffle

by Michele D.  Maniscalco
Wednesday Oct 10, 2018

A South Ender from the Ellis Neighborhood Association area, frustrated on a recent Sunday at being unable to find a place to park while seeing about a dozen non-resident cars parked in resident spaces on one side of her block, posted to Facebook's South End Community Board last week asking who is responsible for parking enforcement, unwittingly starting a heated conversation that ranged from amusement to outrage and contained conflicting information.

Some residents reported calling 311 to report Sunday parking violations to varying results, from a reportedly quick response to none at all. Some residents were reluctant to call 911 for parking violations because they did not deem it an emergency and they were concerned about police officers being diverted from responding to more serious situations. The poster herself said that she had called 311 to report illegal parking, feeling that 911 should be reserved for emergencies, and she was told to call 911 instead.

Bemused by the long and vociferous thread her post sparked, the poster herself said in a written message, "I was surprised that it morphed into a 311 vs. 911 conversation. I have to say, when I have called the police for non-urgent issues, they do tell me to call 911."

South End Forum chairman Steve Fox responded to residents' reticence to call 911 with recommendations from the Boston Police Department (BPD). Fox wrote, "In every meeting with BPD over the past couple of decades, the message has been astonishingly consistent. If X, call 911, if Y, call 911, if Z, call 911. The city and the police want these reports for pattern analysis and resource deployment decisions. No one should ever be hesitant about logging a call into 911 because the system is built on a hierarchy of call importance. No units will be delayed from some life-saving function because a call was made about a parking issue, unpermitted contractor work, or any number of other less serious concerns."

He added, "In fact, much to the annoyance of the police, we have had a hard time convincing neighbors to make the call to 911 for what may not be a life-threatening emergency."

In addition to discussing the correct protocol for reporting illegal Sunday parking, some posters called into question the legitimacy of parking reserved for residents itself. One very vocal member of the South End Community Board railed against "suburbanites" in the South End who depend upon cars and on-street parking, and called those who report resident parking violations "entitled". That commenter predicted the end of resident permit parking in a matter of years.

Others replied that they are simply reporting violations of the existing laws. A neighbor in the Mass. Ave. area lamented seeing drivers without handicap placards illegally taking the handicap space in front of her home, claiming that while calling 311 generally results in officers arriving promptly, trying to contact the car's owner to move it and writing a ticket, calling 911 rarely elicits a response.

The South End News went directly to the source to seek the proper protocol. In a telephone interview, a spokesman for the BPD said that contrary to what some residents believe, 911 is the number to call when they want a response to a situation, whether it is illegal parking or a late-night noise complaint in addition to the more serious crimes of theft and violence.

The spokesman explained that they want to receive and log all complaints and will use their own discretion in deciding in which order to respond to situations. In the case of illegal parking on a Sunday, the spokesman affirmed that BPD will send an available officer to ticket for parking violations, since Boston Traffic Department is not available on Sunday.