Mayor

One thing that no one that works with government wants is media attention. Media has the ability to turn regular everyday life into outrage at its own whim.

One outrage that has existed just fine without media help is the San Francisco Department of Parking & Traffic. It's no secret that the project I work on is funded mainly through convenience fees collected from people paying parking tickets online. Our online citation payment feature is one of the few bastions of convenience surrounding DPT these days. They have been terribly understaffed and overworked lately, and it appears the long lines and teller window freakouts have finally caught the attention of the mayor.

This article underscores some of the understandable frustration people have been experiencing while trying to do business with the department. Somehow, the mayor has now associated our convenience fees with the public's frustrations and has indicated that he wants to see them eliminated. Great. In reality, we don't receive many complaints about our fees from the public. When there are complaints, they tend to be aimed at the misconception that our services are a cost savings to the City.

There is nothing the public likes to see more than swift and drastic cuts in taxes and fees. Yee haw! Unfortunately, the costs of our services don't become free. Those fees will now have to be paid from some general fund that is currently used for other, less visible services.

I am a fan of the idea that people should pay mainly for services that they use (e.g. bus fares, bridge tolls, and dog licenses). If he funds our project through unrelated sources, that means that people who aren't Internet users will be paying for part of our project either through reduced services or higher taxes - in theory.

I am glad, however, that my project is anywhere on the mayor's radar and that there doesn't appear to be any danger of us getting cut entirely. Personally, I think our services are a ray of light, as city projects tend to go.

I just wish our project were allowed to thrive along the same business model that has been so successful thus far. Ah politics.