LINCOLN, Vt. (WCAX) – Town administrators in Lincoln have been fighting a parking ticket for months, saying there’s no way the citation, issued by New York City, makes sense.
That ticket was for the town’s 5-ton wheel-loader, which they say hasn’t even left the garage often, much less been to the Big Apple.
“This is totally wrong, this is totally incorrect,” Lincoln Town Administrator Trish Waugh said about the ticket that came in the mail.
The fine claimed the wheel-loader was parked illegally in Queens and came with a $115 fine.
Reporter Connor Ullathorne: “Could you even imagine this on a New York City street?”
Trish Waugh: “No, I’ve been on New York City streets, especially Queens. How does this get parked on a street and anybody able to get by it?”
Waugh said things aren’t adding up, especially because it would be nearly impossible for the large vehicle to make a near-300-mile trip south. Traffic-free, it would take 12 hours.
“Max speed is 25 miles per hour. I’m pretty sure you would run out of gas,” Waugh said.
She said the wheel-loader’s main use is to move the sand pile out back, and it rarely leaves the vicinity of the garage, where it’s kept under lock and key.
“We don’t have a trailer that can trail it. You can’t drive it on the road. And even if somebody had backed up a trailer to grab it while we weren’t around, it lives in the garage; there’s no way anybody could have gotten in to get it,” Waugh said.
Waugh said she also mailed New York City a check for the parking ticket, but it hasn’t been cashed. And the town had now racked up late fines on top of the original cost.
“It’s not even a matter of the money. It’s taken more money to fight this thing than the actual cost of the ticket, but it’s not right,” Waugh said.
The whole process has taken months, something the town says is eating up valuable time.
“Something else isn’t getting done because I’m dealing with this. I’m not getting a grant or I’m not applying for needed funding,” Waugh said.
WCAX News contacted New York City’s Department of Finance for more information about the process but had not yet heard back when this story was published.
Waugh said they’ll have a meeting in the next few weeks to appeal the decision.
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