Fresh Loaf

In 2007, 500 downtown Atlanta parking meters were stolen. They were sawed at their base and carted off, presumably by people eager to get their hands on the approximately $35 in quarters, dimes and nickels inside.

This morning, Atlanta police located several of the missing meters during a round-up of homeless people camping out in Downtown’s railroad gulch.

From the AJC:

Among the stolen items recovered during the 5:30 a.m. operation were an electric wheelchair and 20 or more parking meters, poles and all.

Wardell said homeless people steal the meters from parking places, then put them on the railroad tracks for trains to run over and break open so they can take the coins.

To reduce the likelihood of a train derailment, and to avoid paying roughly $250,000 annually just to replace stolen parking meters, the city should consider giving Atlanta’s homeless people keys to open the meters.

Think about it.

The homeless can get the change the city doesn’t promptly collect. The city can keeps its expensive meters intact. Freight trains will encounter fewer dangerous obstacles. And the panhandling which annoys the crap out of people who visit and work Downtown would likely drop.

Sugg, if you steal this idea for your urban think tank, I’m coming after you.

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The AJC has an Associated Press story on its home page that says someone is sawing the heads off of parking meters downtown to steal the coins inside.

There are two places in the story that rouse one of my pet peeves about the state of modern-day journalism: swallowing what a public official tells you with no critical thought.

First, the story says police aren’t investigating the thefts because the city doesn’t report them stolen. Which begs the basic question: Why isn’t the city reporting the thefts? Isn’t that Journalism 101? Who? What? When? Where? And why?

But then there’s this: The story quotes a city official as saying the city is replacing the meters, and that the parking meter program “pays for itself.”

Well, gee, if they weren’t spending all that money to REPLACE 500 stolen meters, would that money not instead go into the city coffers?

There’s a phrase for that: bureaucratic doublespeak, and journalists let public officials get away with that far too often.

What they’re really telling us is this: Someone is stealing parking meters downtown and the city isn’t doing a damned thing about it, other than spending our money to purchase new ones. And on top of that, the city isn’t collecting all the money it should be collecting for parking meters because … the meters aren’t there.

Your government, and watchdog press, at work. Or not.

Sigh.

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