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People who park illegally in handicapped parking slots should know their chances of getting caught and paying a fine are going up significantly. A small army of volunteer parking enforcers will hit the streets soon, writing tickets and taking names. Houston Public Radio’s Jim Bell reports.
About a hundred volunteer parking enforcement officers will fan out across the city soon to enforce handicapped parking zones in parking lots all over Houston. Parking Management Assistant Director Liliana Rambo says it’s a huge job, with at least half a million people who qualify as “disabled”, and thousands of handicapped parking slots. The city held a half-day class to train the volunteers today, and Rambo says she’s delighted that so many people want to help.
We are very pleased with the response we got………it’s not available.
Michelle Colvard is Chairperson of the City of Houston’s Commission on Disbilities, and she’s also one of the volunteers. Colvard needs a wheel chair to get around, and she says people who park in handicapped slots illegally don’t understand the problem they’re causing for people who need the slot.
When there are other parking spaces available……..about it.
City officials say a little over two dozen volunteer officers wrote about a fourth of the nearly ten thousand handicapped parking citations last year. With about a hundred new officers, they say they expect a lot more citations this year. Jim Bell, Houston Public Radio News.