Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 15, 1992                   TAG: 9203150020
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: E1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

IT'S A FINE WAY TO PARK A CAMPAIGN

Where else but within the kind and genteel confines of Roanoke's political arena could you pile up 163 parking tickets over four years, force the city to exert untold hours of manpower trying to coax you into paying the fines, be forced into court over the issue, and still be considered a viable candidate for city council?

Where else? Nowhere.

Carrying more baggage than a USAir flight, she's still a candidate. Coated with Teflon and sprayed with Pam, the Anderson machine cooks on.

City Republicans, just a jolly bunch of guys and gals, see Anderson's parking rap sheet as a non-issue.

Anderson's charmed life once took her to work each day in the city clerk's office, where she toiled as a secretary.

In 1988, running late for work, she hastily parked near the municipal building and got 40 parking tickets.

In 1989, running late for work, she hastily parked and got 22 parking tickets.

Not satisfied that her pace was slacking, Anderson buckled down in 1990, parking hastily and getting 34 parking tickets.

And reaching back for one of those rare performances in 1991, destined to set herself far apart from mere careless-parking mortals, she scored an impressive 67 parking tickets.

Would've been a lot cheaper to get a new alarm clock.

Hey, getting a parking ticket stuck to your windshield hardly puts you in a league with gangland assassins.

Lots of people get parking tickets - 2,074 tickets were written in the 29 days of February alone. Of the $16,950 in February fines citywide, $13,239 have already been paid.

In short, most people know the gig's up when they get the ticket. They pay in short order.

Or they pay when they get the mildly threatening letter from the city after 13 days have passed - and the base-price $5 fine suddenly blooms into $20.

Or they pay when the mildly threatening letter, too, is ignored, and the matter is referred to General District Court.

Renee Anderson could have wallpapered her living room with the paperwork those parking tickets generated. Some tickets ended up in court. Some she paid on a payment plan agreed upon with the city only after she'd already piled up hundreds of dollars in fines.

She owed, and has paid, $1,035.

Anderson says it's over and done and has nothing to do with her suitability to serve on City Council.

Her business acumen, though, is from the Buy High, Sell Low School of Financial Ruin.

For $3, Renee Anderson could have parked all day long in the parking garage on Church Avenue, just a couple hundred feet from the Municipal Building.

For $3.25, she could have parked all day even closer, in the Allright Parking lot that spends a part of each day in the Municipal Building's shadow.

Spending $5 when you can get away with spending only $3.25 is bad business. Doing it 163 times is absurd.

Surviving it politically is nothing short of Roanoke politics and divine intervention.

Keywords:
POLITICS