I’d wager a significant portion of my meager paycheck that Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz gets a lot of dumb letters, and I’m talking about a breed of dumb that goes beyond simply misspelling his humdinger of a last name. I’m talking about the kind of dumb that inspires one to carry a gerbil-wheel with one before the entire city council, with more than 50 people waiting in line behind you to address the body, and talk about “nibbling on nuts.” (You have to page down to around 5:50 in Kristin’s notes to catch this Will Sandstrom classic — though I guess his tirade is more a case of “stark raving mad” than “dumb”).

Anyway, if most of us got the kind of letters he does on a regular basis, I imagine we would get into the habit of just chucking most of them in the trash. But not Cieslewicz, apparently. In his latest blog post, his honor the Mayor lampoons the most frequent occupants of his inbox, complaints about Madison’s parking enforcement.

“I am just writing to inform you of the world’s worst injustice which took place in your gulag of a city not too long ago. As a result of this travesty, I have plans to bring Madison to its knees. Let me explain. (Here there are typically three pages of single spaced detail on the person’s every move for the two hours preceding and following the moment of ticketing.)

As you can clearly see from my brief recounting of events, I was wrongly fined by your overzealous officers. If my ticket is not dismissed immediately along with an apology copied to the media, my employer and my mother, I will destroy Madison’s economy by never returning to your city to spend so much as a dime. Moreover, I will tell all my friends here in Toledo and in the greater Toledo area never to set foot in your fascist city…”

I couldn’t help but throw my head back and laugh upon reading this, for several reasons. Firstly, the Mayor once told me he has staffers who check his blog posts prior to their posting and weed out some of the more undiplomatic ones — but admits that, “every once in a while I sneak one past the censors.”

This is clearly one of the latter. As much as people as cracked as me may have enjoyed his candor in this case, somewhere someone is reading it and getting offended right now.

But even funnier to me is the striking similarity the mayor’s fictitious letter of complaint bears to one of my more vehement rants of all time relating to a parking ticket I received after mistakenly parking my motorcycle in a partially unoccupied handicapped stall outside city hall.

“Ignorance of the law is no defense against it, I get that. Not seeing the sign is a mistake anyone can make, albeit a one-hundred dollar mistake in the City-of-the-Perpetually-Offended. And if I had in some way inconvenienced someone who had a deserved right to that spot, I would take a deep breath, clutch my manhood in one hand and my wallet in the other and pay the fine without complaining.

But WHO in HELL was I inconveniencing by using up the remaining three feet of that parallel parking spot? When I emerged from that horrid meeting three and a half hours later, the same gray van was parked in front of me, so it’s not like any passing disabled motorist even got the impression the spot was claimed. And what other use was there for the remaining space I took up? After all, I find it highly unlikely a paraplegic motorcyclist was going to come along and park there…“

And it goes on to get more outlandish and ridiculous from there, though the exaggerated hyperbole was intentional.

So yes, it’s easy and even popular to complain about Madison’s parking enforcement — I’m certainly no trailblazer when it comes to my views on parking or traffic tickets. I salute the mayor for unflinchingly dishing the BS right back, but hope he understands that it CAN get tough to make a living that pays very little and often takes one into the “danger zone” of Madison parking downtown.

I’ve literally paid hundreds of dollars into Madison’s city budget through parking tickets — not quite a thousand, but certainly in the ballpark of five hundred. Some of them I deserved, some of them were questionable. Either way, it gets overwhelming, and if no one’s going to name a wing in city hall after me for my generous financial contributions, the least I can do is waste some public official’s time with an incoherent letter.

Of course, if Mayor Cieslewicz dismantled the entire parking enforcement division, he could be rid of the complaint letters altogether. It’s a plan I’d like to implement, and I figure if the mayor gets to take an occasional crack at being a wiseass, I should get a shot at running the city every once in a while.

Nobody had to tell me I could expect to see and experience strange things while I was in California. I may be a smalltown rube, but I watch the TV, damnit!

But there’s the kind of strange you expect to see, there’s the kind of strange that catches you across the jaw like a left hook, and then there are things that just don’t make any damn sense. And I’ll admit, for the first twenty seconds after we pulled up at this stoplight in downtown San Francisco, I was so dumbfounded, the notion of taking a picture escaped me. I only managed to quickdraw my camera and snap a photo after the light turned green.

Now I spend a good amount of time shooting my mouth off, and as such, I expect to spend some time with my foot occupying space in said orifice. But, damnit, I should never have had to take back these words, taken from a rant I posted last summer decrying what I perceived as an abuse by Madison’s parking enforcement division.

So when I arrived at the Dane County Board of Supervisors meeting this evening, I was thrilled to spy an open sliver of a spot directly across the street from the City-County building the meeting was at. There was a gray van parked there, but I pulled in behind it. I didn’t notice the handicapped tags on the van. I didn’t notice the handicapped parking sign…”

“…And if I had in some way inconvenienced someone who had a deserved right to that spot, I would take a deep breath, clutch my manhood in one hand and my wallet in the other and pay the fine without complaining.

But WHO in HELL was I inconveniencing by using up the remaining three feet of that parallel parking spot? When I emerged from that horrid meeting three and a half hours later, the same gray van was parked in front of me, so it’s not like any passing disabled motorist even got the impression the spot was claimed. And what other use was there for the remaining space I took up?”

And in this perplexing photo, I suppose we have found the answer to my rhetorical question. Somewhere out there on the coast, there is a rider on a green dirt bike with a disabled sticker on his M-Class vehicle. I don’t understand how it might possibly work, but I will admit that this person had a legitimate claim to the space I took up.

I apologize, black-clad mystery rider. Now if you would kindly explain to me how it was you qualified for that little blue tag when you’re clearly able to control and support a 200-pound piece of machinery between your legs, I would be much obliged.

Madison parking scofflaws on the isthmus — you’re on notice. I’m a hair’s breadth from taking the law into my own hands, and while I’m generally pretty mild-mannered, I’m as restrained as Adam “PacMan” Jones in a strip club with a bad case of the Mondays when it comes to meting out vilgilante justice.

I don’t live on a main thoroughfare — far from it, in fact. That the city chooses to clear the snow off our little half-block of a side street at all should be cause for the residents to celebrate, but the plow drivers are not exactly being greeted by a ticker tape parade.

When they city’s workers make the right turn onto Castle Place, they’re finding cars parked willy-nilly, with no regard for the snow emergency parking regulations designed to allow plow drivers to clear each road curb to curb over the course of two nights. And now, I’m worried the city is a few snowfalls away from writing off our street altogether.

Once again this winter, owning an automobile in the heart of Madison has not been a piece of cake. Digging out occasionally and braving the winter parking regulations is par for the course, a part of the price drivers pay for the privilege of being independently mobile in a city that offers decent public transit options anyway.

Except it seems our city is plagued with a bunch of clueless deadbeats content to let their automobiles accumulate enough snow around their bases to build a good-sized fort. It begs the question whether people who only use their cars once every couple of weeks should be allowed to keep them on the street.

Do I begrudge your owning an automobile in the heart of the city? Absolutely not. But do I take serious issue if you’re not willing to invest the time and effort to get your two-ton hulk of rust and rubber out of the damn way so our city crews can do their job and make driving easier for everyone?

Let me put it this way: leaving your car buried up to the quarterpanels in week old snow where I can see it with two parking tickets stuck under the wiper blade is inviting me to huck a molotov cocktail through the window.

My case in point is the bucket of bolts, rust-on-gray mini-van some probable child molester left parked right in front of my house for two weeks in December. Never mind that the owner left it parked in the same spot through the heaviest periods of snowfall we’ve gotten so far in this outrageous winter… and two declared snow emergencies! Never mind that the piece of trash was taking up prime parking real estate right off my front door step. Never mind that I was re-infuriated at the owner’s lack on decency every time I walked past, or even looked out my front window.

What irks me the most is that, whether the van was eventually moved or towed, the amassed snow around its base remains, melted down by the brief warm spell, then re-frozen into foot-and-a-half crags of ice that make parking there a virtual impossibility for every vehicle known to man save an Abrams tank.

I wish I could say what I just described is a rare scenario, but a drive through downtown Madison will turn up an identical case every thirty to forty feet. What’s worse, if too many cars are parked on one side of the street when a plow rumbles through, oftentimes the driver will have no choice but to simply clear the middle of the street, leaving the snow to accumulate on the side where people should be able to park.

This results in drivers having to park closer to the middle of the road, and when a few of THEM don’t move their cars to allow the plow drivers through, the problem compounds itself and the roads begin to continuously get narrower. It’s only mid-January, but it’s already so bad on my street that I watched a plow squeak a single narrow lane between the rows of cars parked on each side of the road this weekend, with mere inches to spare on either side of the blade.

If my road gets any narrower, it’s going to be unplowable, and then I’ll really be in a car-torching mood.

It’s winter. This is Wisconsin. Checking up on the vehicle every couple of days and moving it if necessary is the owner’s responsibilty, no exceptions. While digging a car out after a snowstorm is no fun, if we’re to be able to drive on our damn roads, we need to work together with the streets department to ensure they can do their job. If the threat of a sixty dollar parking ticket isn’t enough to motivate one to do so, being able to move an ambulance or a fire truck down the street should be.

So this is my call to arms. You’re either with me or against me, and those who shun our cause of passable streets hold their own personal property forefeit.

From here on out, the rules are as such. Those who fail to comply with the snow emergency alternate side parking rules are subject to have their finish keyed and their windows egged. Failure to comply with the city’s 48-hour street storage rule when there’s a fresh layer of snow on the ground not only risks a ticket, but also broken sideview mirrors.

After the third day of abandonment, a heavy boot to the quarter panel becomes acceptable. If a car has been buried to its lugnuts in snow for four days, the radio antenna may be pried off — likewise for the windshield wipers on day five, and the gas hatch or any spoilers and other such adornments on day six.

If a car is still buried in snow that’s a week old, the use of heavy throwing or bludgeoning implements is strongly encouraged. I recommend beginning with smaller rocks, hurled at the side of the car at close range. If this doesn’t drive the point home after several days, more drastic measures may be needed, including the use of a baseball bat to remove the sideview mirrors entirely and perform some major body work.

Eventually, you may find it cathartic to resort to lobbing bricks or even cinder blocks at the hood or through the side windows. Care should be taken not to damage the windshield, however, and there’s a good reason.

You’ll note that all the recommended methods of vigilante parking enforcement thus far do nothing to inhibit the violating auto’s owner from clearing the snow off their car, firing it up and moving it to a more appropriate parking spot. Indeed, that’s what we’re trying to encourage here. A broken windshield, for instance, slashed tires or a sugared gas tank would only delay the process of clearing the parking spot for use.

But upon reaching the two-week mark following a snowstorm, if the car still has not been moved, it’s fair to assume it’s really and truly abandoned — a public nuissance, a pile of refuse taking up space in the public right of way — and it’s every decency-conscious citizen’s duty to blow it up.

As I mentioned earlier, a hurled molotov cocktail presents a simple-yet-dramatic way to torch an errant automobile without much risk of personal injury or exposure to police attention. Given the cover of darkness and a little time to work, it’s also possible to pry the cover off the gas tank and use the reservoir itself as a source of fuel, given the ability to rig up some sort of improvised fuse like an oily rag.

Torching a car that’s preventing city employees from clearing the road presents a trifecta of advantages. Once the flaming hulk of metal has smoldered and gone out, a city crew will inevitably arrive to tow it out of the street. Likewise, a burning car sets a noticeable, iconic example to other potential scofflaws on your street, and they’ll think twice before violating the city’s snow parking laws themselves.

Finally, the heat thrown off in the hour or two the car burns will quickly melt away the accumulated snow and ice that would otherwise render the parking space unusable. It’s basically win-win-win… and a lose for the deadbeat that didn’t think enough of their neighbors to just move their damn car.

Madison parking scofflaws on the isthmus — you’re on notice. I’m a hair’s breadth from taking the law into my own hands, and while I’m generally pretty mild-mannered, I’m as restrained as Adam “PacMan” Jones in a strip club with a bad case of the Mondays when it comes to meting out vilgilante justice.

I don’t live on a main thoroughfare — far from it, in fact. That the city chooses to clear the snow off our little half-block of a side street at all should be cause for the residents to celebrate, but the plow drivers are not exactly being greeted by a ticker tape parade.

When the city’s workers make the right turn onto Castle Place, they’re finding cars parked willy-nilly, with no regard for the snow emergency parking regulations designed to allow plow drivers to clear each road curb to curb over the course of two nights. And now, I’m worried the city is a few snowfalls away from writing off our street altogether.

Once again this winter, owning an automobile in the heart of Madison has not been a piece of cake. Digging out occasionally and braving the winter parking regulations is par for the course, a part of the price drivers pay for the privilege of being independently mobile in a city that offers decent public transit options anyway.

Except it seems our city is plagued with a bunch of clueless deadbeats content to let their automobiles accumulate enough snow around their bases to build a good-sized fort. It begs the question whether people who only use their cars once every couple of weeks should be allowed to keep them on the street.

Do I begrudge your owning an automobile in the heart of the city? Absolutely not. But do I take serious issue if you’re not willing to invest the time and effort to get your two-ton hulk of rust and rubber out of the damn way so our city crews can do their job and make driving easier for everyone?

Let me put it this way: leaving your car buried up to the quarterpanels in week old snow where I can see it with two parking tickets stuck under the wiper blade is inviting me to huck a molotov cocktail through the window.

My case in point is the bucket of bolts, rust-on-gray mini-van some probable child molester left parked right in front of my house for two weeks in December. Never mind that the owner left it parked in the same spot through the heaviest periods of snowfall we’ve gotten so far in this outrageous winter… and two declared snow emergencies! Never mind that the piece of trash was taking up prime parking real estate right off my front door step. Never mind that I was re-infuriated at the owner’s lack on decency every time I walked past, or even looked out my front window.

What irks me the most is that, whether the van was eventually moved or towed, the amassed snow around its base remains, melted down by the brief warm spell, then re-frozen into foot-and-a-half crags of ice that make parking there a virtual impossibility for every vehicle known to man save an Abrams tank.

I wish I could say what I just described is a rare scenario, but a drive through downtown Madison will turn up an identical case every thirty to forty feet. What’s worse, if too many cars are parked on one side of the street when a plow rumbles through, oftentimes the driver will have no choice but to simply clear the middle of the street, leaving the snow to accumulate on the side where people should be able to park.

This results in drivers having to park closer to the middle of the road, and when a few of THEM don’t move their cars to allow the plow drivers through, the problem compounds itself and the roads begin to continuously get narrower. It’s only mid-January, but it’s already so bad on my street that I watched a plow squeak a single narrow lane between the rows of cars parked on each side of the road this weekend, with mere inches to spare on either side of the blade.

If my road gets any narrower, it’s going to be unplowable, and then I’ll really be in a car-torching mood.

It’s winter. This is Wisconsin. Checking up on the vehicle every couple of days and moving it if necessary is the owner’s responsibilty, no exceptions. While digging a car out after a snowstorm is no fun, if we’re to be able to drive on our damn roads, we need to work together with the streets department to ensure they can do their job. If the threat of a sixty dollar parking ticket isn’t enough to motivate one to do so, being able to move an ambulance or a fire truck down the street should be.

So this is my call to arms. You’re either with me or against me, and those who shun our cause of passable streets hold their own personal property forefeit.

From here on out, the rules are as such. Those who fail to comply with the snow emergency alternate side parking rules are subject to have their finish keyed and their windows egged. Failure to comply with the city’s 48-hour street storage rule when there’s a fresh layer of snow on the ground not only risks a ticket, but also broken sideview mirrors.

After the third day of abandonment, a heavy boot to the quarter panel becomes acceptable. If a car has been buried to its lugnuts in snow for four days, the radio antenna may be pried off — likewise for the windshield wipers on day five, and the gas hatch or any spoilers and other such adornments on day six.

If a car is still buried in snow that’s a week old, the use of heavy throwing or bludgeoning implements is strongly encouraged. I recommend beginning with smaller rocks, hurled at the side of the car at close range. If this doesn’t drive the point home after several days, more drastic measures may be needed, including the use of a baseball bat to remove the sideview mirrors entirely and perform some major body work.

Eventually, you may find it cathartic to resort to lobbing bricks or even cinder blocks at the hood or through the side windows. Care should be taken not to damage the windshield, however, and there’s a good reason.

You’ll note that all the recommended methods of vigilante parking enforcement thus far do nothing to inhibit the violating auto’s owner from clearing the snow off their car, firing it up and moving it to a more appropriate parking spot. Indeed, that’s what we’re trying to encourage here. A broken windshield, for instance, slashed tires or a sugared gas tank would only delay the process of clearing the parking spot for use.

But upon reaching the two-week mark following a snowstorm, if the car still has not been moved, it’s fair to assume it’s really and truly abandoned — a public nuissance, a pile of refuse taking up space in the public right of way — and it’s every decency-conscious citizen’s duty to blow it up.

As I mentioned earlier, a hurled molotov cocktail presents a simple-yet-dramatic way to torch an errant automobile without much risk of personal injury or exposure to police attention. Given the cover of darkness and a little time to work, it’s also possible to pry the cover off the gas tank and use the reservoir itself as a source of fuel, given the ability to rig up some sort of improvised fuse like an oily rag.

Torching a car that’s preventing city employees from clearing the road presents a trifecta of advantages. Once the flaming hulk of metal has smoldered and gone out, a city crew will inevitably arrive to tow it out of the street. Likewise, a burning car sets a noticeable, iconic example to other potential scofflaws on your street, and they’ll think twice before violating the city’s snow parking laws themselves.

Finally, the heat thrown off in the hour or two the car burns will quickly melt away the accumulated snow and ice that would otherwise render the parking space unusable. It’s basically win-win-win… and a lose for the deadbeat that didn’t think enough of their neighbors to just move their damn car.

When I first moved to Madison, I’ll admit, I was inherently suspicious of any food that’s served out of a shack. The same goes for trailers, carts, wagons, trucks and wheelbarrows.

Maybe it was part of coming into my own as a UW freshman, but I did eventually get adventurous and try some of the food vendors who set up regularly on Library Mall. Ingrid’s Mad City Meatloaf converted me from a cautious mobile cuisine dabbler to a shameless promoter and rabid fan of the entire food cart community.

But then again, Ingrid’s meatloaf could probably turn Vegans back to carnivorism, if she didn’t offer a hefty selection for Madison’s lettucehead population as well.

Nonetheless, one of my greatest failures as a UW student may have been neglecting to visit “Jin’s Chicken and Fish” shack even ONCE after a night out at the bars. And now, if the City of Madison Vending Oversight Committee has its way, I may have less than a month to do so before it’s gone for at least six months.

At a meeting last week, the VOC voted to recommend that Jeff Okafo, the proprietor of Jin’s Chicken, be stripped of his vending license for six months. His offense? A stack of parking tickets and a run-in with a Madison Police officer that resulted in Okafo being on the business end of a taser / pepper spray barrage.

When Okafo told me about the taser part this morning at Indie Coffee, I nearly doused the guy in a mouthful of black coffee. I CCAPed him in preparation for our meeting, and I was aware of the Obstructing an Officer charges pending against him for a little kerfuffle from last spring. But the cavalier way he described having chili derivative sprayed in his eyes and upwards of 15,000 volts of electricity coursing through his flesh nearly floored me.

I would not mess with Jeff Okafo, even at bartime. The city of Madison, on the other hand, swings a decidedly heavier hammer than I do.

One can certainly make the argument that Okafo has damned himself in this whole situation. Wracking up 29 parking tickets in a year is of itself a feat worth some note, perhaps even a record of some kind. The alleged fight with a parking enforcement officer in May is even more damning, as are the Operating After Revocation tickets he’s earned along the way.

But then again, put in his same situation, I can see myself winding up even worse off. It’s not much of a stretch.

Okafo makes his living selling food out of a cart late at night. The city has not granted him permission to set up on Library Mall or State Street, where he would be out of the way when parking push came to parking shove, so he has to battle for spots on the one street they have given him permission to use: Frances Street, where the spots are scarce and metered.

The meters, of course, aren’t monitored after six o’clock in the evening, but the spots there are filled up long before then by people hoping themselves to park overnight. In order to be assured a spot, and thus an income for the evening, Okafo needs to get there by the middle of the afternoon… Which means plugging the meters… Which means risking a ticket.

29 tickets in a year still seemed extreme to me, until I realized that I myself have amassed seven or eight tickets in the past year for various parking infractions. As a reporter, I certainly spend more time tooling around in a car downtown than most people, but I certainly don’t make my living parking out on the streets like Okafo does. For him, parking tickets are almost just another business expense.

The tickets are of course a hair-tearing inconvenience, but it’s when they stack up that they become a major problem. When you amass as many as Okafo has, it’s only a matter of time before a few slip through the cracks and remain unpaid. This runs up the amount owed, and eventually suspends your registration with the state.

But when your livelihood depends on driving a cart downtown to set up for the evening, a suspended registration could certainly look insignificant compared to having no income until the troubles are cleared up…that is, until those blueberries and cherries show up in your rearview mirror.

As to Okafo’s alleged run-in with the police last May, it’s tough to work out what actually happened. He says he came upon a parking enforcement officer writing him a ticket, had some words and the police got called. In what he describes as a complete police overreaction, he ended up down for the count and under arrest.

Okay. Who hasn’t gotten a little heated when they discover they’ve received a visit from Madison’s Parking Ninjas? Judging by my overreaction to getting a parking ticket in June, I’ll be bound over on attempted homicide charges if I ever catch the actual parking goon in the act, though I’m convinced they’re equipped with some kind of stealth technology.

Were the officers’ actions appropriate in dealing with the situation as it unfolded? That’s a gray area. As anyone who was on State Street during either of the last two so-called “riots” following the Halloween festival will tell you, our department has an affinity for quickly deploying teargas. And if you believe Okafo’s account, it sounds like his situation wasn’t much different:

“I went to go talk to the police officer to complain about the parking enforcement officer. Meanwhile, the guy is yelling at me to get on the ground and put my hands behind my back. I didn’t want to put my hands behind my back because I didn’t want him to think I had a weapon, so I put my hands over my head. Then he tasers me. I felt the taser, it didn’t take full effect, I grabbed the dart out of me. I’m standing 10-15 feet away from him, he says he’s gonna call another officer. I say that’s a good idea, and he interpreted that as a threat. He made it sound in the report like I was screaming in the middle of the street, which is completely untrue.”

(By the way, that previous link is why you don’t meet with a source in a coffee shop frequented by student journalists with laptops and nothing better to do on a Tuesday than eavesdrop your interview and scoop you before you can get home from work and do your writing. Get a job, and get off my damn lawn you kids! (…so kidding…) )

I’m not making excuses for Okafo. I have nothing but respect for Mike Verveer, who sits on the Vending Oversight Committee. I have occasionally disagreed with him, but I think he’s an admirable leader with sound judgement. And when I broached the topic with Verveer tonight, he assured me the city is within its rights to do what it’s doing. He also went to bat for the officers on the scene, saying Okafo “picked a fight.”

A friend of mine who’s familiar with the case admits, “Jeff has made mistakes and handled himself poorly, but I agree with him that it seems unfair that he may lose his vending license because of this. Parking tickets come with a penalty already.”

The city is taking a hardline stance with Jin’s chicken, and it could set a dangerous precedent for the other street vendors that make downtown Madison the colorful, vibrant place it is. In a sense, Okafo is being doubly punished: he’s taken the steps to pay off most of the parking tickets, and he says he spent over $3,000 to get his license and registration reinstated. He pays a nonrefundable fee to the city for the privilege of vending food on the streets, but they’re looking at taking that away from him anyway.

And if a court indeed finds him guilty of obstructing an officer and disorderly conduct, he will pay the associated penalty. But if the city strips him of the livelihood he’s made for himself since 1992, what reason does he have to reform, to break out of the funk he’s stuck in?

As he told me very plainly, “Nobody else I’ve ever met’s job is threatened by parking tickets.”

And don’t even get me started on those maniacs down at parking enforcement. How many cities have you heard of where the meter masters literally have the power to drive a man from his livelihood?