Democracy In Albany

The Treasurer cannot provide a report listing the value of parking fine tickets written per year, and the amount of fines collected, forgiven, reduced or dismissed and the amount remaining uncollected for each year for the year 2002 to date.

Certain conclusions are certain. There were no controls in place over any part of this system. There were no criteria to determine which license plates were entered. The list was never reviewed to insure that the vehicle was still worthy of being in the system. There was no clear mandate as to who was authorized that plates be entered.

The Treasurer again maintained that she had no knowledge of the VIP list or that warning tickets were being issued to anyone on this list. It was later discovered that she had in fact received seven such tickets on her vehicle

There is also apparently no one in authority at either Traffic Safety Division or the Treasurer’s Office who knows whether or not the no fine tickets are transmitted in the report of tickets from Traffic Safety to the Treasurer. While the City Treasurer and PVB Director both testified that they have never received no fine tickets in the weekly or daily list of parking tickets, one wonders why these tickets would be removed from the report. It would seem to make sense that a paper ticket was issued in the first place to keep track of the no fine tickets. Otherwise, the PSO would just ignore the car and not issue a ticket as they did prior to the purchase of handhelds. Considering that a PSO could at any time write a no fine ticket for any reason, it would make sense that the Traffic Violation Bureau Chief would want to audit the list of no fine tickets randomly to check for abuse of the system

Treasurer Barnette herself received several no fine tickets, and yet she was never concerned with the amount of no tine tickets being written and the attendant loss of revenue to the city. It is implausible that these tickets were written, yet never received by the parties involved. It should have been incumbent upon her and her PVB Director to determine why these tickets were not

Treasurer Barnette stated that she has nothing to do with the selection of a new system even though an entire Bureau under her leadership is dependent on the type of new system selected.

The attitude and actions of the City Treasurer towards the Common Council and the lack of internal controls of that Office could easily instigate a second investigation by the Council. From the start, the Treasurer portrayed her office as a completely independent office separate and apart from this city government. She refused to give the Council even the most basic information that would generally be available to the public under the Freedom of Information Law. When she did comply, she used the diversionary tactic of providing documents and reports, but not those actually requested by the Council.

There also appears to be a discrepancy with her March 30 testimony where she stated she had never seen or known of no fine tickets, and the later revelation that she had received seven of such no fine tickets. It was also disturbing when revealed that PVB Director Van Apeldorn’s wife received seventy no fine tickets. This calls into questions their entire testimony that evening