Two Hours??? Had I seen this program coming down the pike, I would never have paid my wife's parking tickets (for some reason she has yet to learn that "no parking" means her as well as everyone else). She (or I in her place) would have been out paying our debt to society. I could have saved hundreds. :-)
Also, in an effort to be fair to Jill Harmon, whereas (from what I'm reading here) it appears the program was indeed set-up to target minority offenders (of misdemeanor offenses), maybe her statement about being white and pissed, isn't out-of-line. What's next? Tax-breaks in exchange for picking-up trash??
What's my point? My point is that my wife is a minorty (except for her 1/8 german ancestry) and when I met her, she essentially owed several hundred in overdue misdemeanor traffic offenses. Our combined income the first 3 years we were together was LESS than $30K/year AND we paid for her tuition to finish school during that time-frame. We considered it a HUGE luxury to BLOW $50 bucks bowling at Bryant Lake Bowl (on a Saturday nite) during that time-frame and there were many days we searched for change in sofa cushions to buy mac & cheese for supper.
I concur, we enable citizens to continue a dysfunctional lifestyle and KEEP them from being productive members of society by allowing them to work-off debts at a highly exhorbinant hourly rate. To justify it by saying that the City, or County saved hundreds of thousands of dollars is erroneous, as in the long-run, nothing was learned and we'll continue to subsidize those that continue to choose a dysfunctional lifestyle.
Dennis Plante Jordan
Dennis Plante Jordan
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