Parking scofflaws getting bigger fines

May 16, 2006

By MARY AMES

Frontiersman

WASILLA - When he saw the handicapped parking placard hanging from a rearview mirror, Mike Ragar knew from 15 yards away it was from another state. When Wasilla's code-compliance officer pulled up to the small black GMC Jimmy for a closer look, a sense of deja vu overwhelmed him.

&#8220This all looks really familiar,” Ragar said. &#8220I've seen this truck before.”

The placard hanging from the mirror was from Hawaii, and it expired in 2004, just like one Ragar confiscated from a man in January.

Ragar has been working toward eliminating cheaters from handicapped parking spaces in Wasilla since Dec. 15. In that time, he ticketed 89 people for misuse of handicapped parking spaces, but he talked with many more. When Ragar confiscated an expired placard, he handed over an application for a current handicapped permit, saving the violator a trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

When Ragar took the expired Hawaii placard in January, the fine for deliberate misuse of handicapped plates or placards was $110 dollars. Since then, Wasilla nearly doubled the fine to $210.

Ragar doesn't leave tickets under the windshield wipers of cars, something he thinks is not productive in the long run. Instead, he waits for drivers to return to their cars, and he talks to them.

&#8220The average violator is someone stressed out and in a hurry, dropping off a video,” Ragar said. &#8220That's a crime of opportunity. But these people with intent, they are cheating every day.”

In some cases, Ragar talks to the violator and helps someone in need who doesn't yet have a legitimate placard of their own.

&#8220Typically you have an 80-year-old lady who uses her dead husband's placard,” he said. &#8220I give her an application in trade. My mom in Pennsylvania has a placard, and I treat people the way I want her to be treated. We're all human.”

It wasn't until Ragar began walking around looking at placards that he noticed the intentional violators, hale and hearty people who make an effort to reduce the distance they to walk and from their cars.

Placards are issued to individuals, and the numbers on them can be run through DMV to identify the rightful owners, just like license plates. And if people cover a placard's expiration date, Ragan can determine the approximate expiration date by the letters and numbers across the top.

Ragar is a man of endless patience, waiting outside of a store sometimes more than an hour for the possible scofflaws to return so he can speak to them face to face. By the time they return, he knows the name and birth date of the person who should be using the special plates or the placard.

&#8220One woman in her 30s was with a teenage boy, and they were doing a brisk bebop into the store,” he said. &#8220Turns out, she was using her dead boyfriend's placard.”

Before he spotted the expired Hawaiian placard in the black GMC, Ragar had spent more than an hour waiting near a sporty red sedan, with no special plates and no placard, parked in a handicapped spot at Wal-Mart. During the wait, six people who used wheelchairs and one who used a rolling cart got out of or into cars or vans parked further from the store than the sports car. The car looked a little too low-slung to be comfortable for someone with a physical disability to drive.

But Ragar wasn't sure it was an intentional violation, and he was right. When a slow-moving, elderly woman walked out with the driver, a young, lithe woman, Ragar walked over to greet them.

&#8220Grandma had a valid placard in her purse,” he said. &#8220I could have written a ticket and left, but why? Half the time I'd forget my head if it wasn't attached.”

Right after a spate of radio, TV and print publicity on Ragar's successful enforcement of handicapped parking in March, he seemed to see fewer violators and get more thumbs-ups from people in parking lots.

At that time, he had eight expired, forged or owned-by-someone-deceased placards he confiscated on a board above his desk. By Wednesday afternoon, he had 23, including two from Arizona, one from British Columbia and two - with sequential numbers - from Hawaii.

The intent of handicapped parking spaces is to make life easier for people in the community with disabilities, Ragar said. The plates and placards are free through the DMV, and they are intended for use only for the person who was issued the placard.

&#8220If you drive your quadriplegic neighbor in your car, it's fine to use her placard,” he said. &#8220But if you use it without her, that's cheating.”

The owner of the black Jimmie walked out of Wal-Mart with a lawn mower in his shopping cart, a woman at his side and a disability card from Hawaii in his wallet. He apologized. He still had the application for a new placard Ragar gave him in January, but he had been too busy to fill it out and drop it off at a DMV station, he said. He promised to take care of the matter now, if only Ragar would please let him off with a warning this time.

Ragar informed the man the city council voted to double the fine in April. He could have dinged him for $210, but Ragar had mercy a second time.

&#8220Be sure to take care of it,” he said.

Ragar said he tries to find balance in his job, to be thorough without ruffling feathers.

&#8220I don't want to cause a problem,” he said. &#8220I want to fix a parking problem.”

And he wants people who park in Wasilla to know he's watching.

&#8220If you don't look disabled and you park in a handicapped spot, I will talk to you,” he said.

Contact Mary Ames at 352-2284 or mary.ames@frontiersman.com.