One LA career with growth potential: parking cop

Mayor Villaraigosa's budget calls for adding 50 more part-time parking officers to walk foot beats in crowded areas such as Downtown, Hollywood and North Hollywood. There already were 100 of these part-timers hired last year, the Daily News says. There's no pretense that it's about any high-minded urban policy. The city believes "the additional officers could bring in another $4 million next year by targeting dense neighborhoods." The number of parking tickets written in the city has fallen to 2.5 million a year, and budget woes are up. Hence the push to send out more ticket-writers and, as we posted about before, to raise the fines on tickets well beyond a day's pay for many workers.

LA Observed photo