ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Saturday, September 21, 1996           TAG: 9609230051
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
note: strip 

CITY CHARGES 8-YEAR-OLD FOR OVERDUE PARKING TICKET

ERIKA CLARK thinks it's pretty funny that she's being held responsible for illegal parking. She can't drive. And she doesn't plan on paying the $15 fine.

The city of Roanoke had had it with Erika Jean Clark.

So on Sept. 13, it sent her a tersely-worded "final notice" demanding she pay up on an 11-month-old parking ticket. Or else, the letter added, the city would take the $15 out of her next income tax refund.

But Clark doesn't pay income taxes.

Nor does she own a car.

How many 8-year-olds do?

"She has a bicycle," said her mother, Traci Dalton. "She thinks it's hilarious, that she got her first parking ticket."

"It was pretty strange," said Erika, a third-grader at Virginia Heights Elementary School. "I was only 7 years old when it happened. I got my first driver's license - a pretend one - when I was 3. I never imagined it would get me a parking ticket."

The letter, on official city stationary, arrived Thursday at Erika's home on Forest Hill Avenue Northeast. It had her name and address spelled correctly.

"Our records indicate that this parking ticket is still outstanding to the City of Roanoke for the amount shown," it states. "This is a final notice. Please forward payment in full to the City Treasurer by return mail.

"Pursuant to [state law], unpaid parking tickets may by submitted to the Commonwealth of Virginia as part of a set-off debt collection procedure."

How the little girl was identified as a parking scofflaw is still somewhat of a mystery. The ticket was issued last Oct. 25 on Kirk Avenue to a white Ford pickup.

The truck's description and tag number match one owned by Erika's grandfather, James W. Clark. Last year, he lived temporarily with Erika and her mother.

Beyond that, however, the mystery gets even murkier.

People who receive one of the more than 40,000 tickets the city issues each year have 10 days to pay them. James Clark didn't pay this one, according to city records. So the city sent him a reminder letter.

By the time it got to the house, all three had moved. Erika and her mother moved to Forest Hill Avenue. James Clark moved elsewhere.

"Our best guess is when the letter came back - and that's what it is, a guess - is that the Post Office had put a new address on it and someone had marked out James W. Clark and put in Erika," said Michelle Bono, a city spokeswoman. "Our assumption was, [Erika] was the spouse. We changed the ticket to say Erika."

There it sat in a city computer file until this month. The city was getting ready to forward its list of scofflaws to the state, which is allowed to deduct fines from income tax refunds. Before it sent the list off, the city made one last stab at collecting. That was the letter Erika received.

Now, it's mostly straightened out. The bottom line: Erika won't have to bust her piggy bank for parking a truck that she's unable to drive anyway.

But James W. Clark is still on the hook for the $15, plus another $15 for a second parking ticket from last year that is unpaid, Bono said.

"Erika may want to have a talk with her grandpa," Bono said.

LENGTH: Medium:   68 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:   ERIC BRADY STAFF Third-grader Erika Clark would be 
          Roanoke's youngest driver, according to the parking ticket she is 
          holding.  color