I live in Philadelphia Pa., all my life.  I have a love/dislike (I never use the other word) with my City, there are many things that are enjoyable.  Food is GREAT, traffic depends on what time of day you travel, plenty of things to do, most people are 'mild,' and a host of other things that makes it a good place to live.

Now for the bad.  I went to the shopping center close to my house.  As I was exiting there were four cops giving out parking tickets to those that were not parked or stopped 'legally.'   The City has tried every which way to rob its citizens of money, some citizens mind you.  This is PRIVATE property that they were handing out tickets yesterday, not public property.  Yet if you would go to South Philadelphia any day or night, any time of the day, you will find cars parked in the middle of the intersection without a ticket, cars parked in the turn lane for hours or over night, double parked cars, its a mess in South Philadelphia.  I recently yelled at a Parking Authority Meter Reader for handing out a ticket to a woman that just went into the Library to drop off her books.  I told him that if this was South Philly she wouldn't have gotten a ticket.  He told me I didn't know what I was talking about, but I do.  They even made an HBO Special about Philadelphia, Philadelphia Parking Wars, it shows how the Parking Authority is corrupt and only targets some parts of the City and one part of the City the residents get away with murder.

The thing is this - The City of Philadelphia needs money just like every other City right now, but many times I have made comment to the Powers that Be that they are not going about this in the right way.  If parking illegally is wrong for one part of the City, then it should be against the law in ALL parts of the City.  Am I right?  Why should one part of the city not even have the Parking Authority on patrol???  Not ONE ticket on those double parked cars??

In 38 years of driving I received three parking tickets, and one moving violation.  The moving violation was a speed trap, I was entering the expressway and gunned it to merge into traffic.  The three parking tickets are recent.  One was given to me in front of my friends house that I was staying for a short time because my friend had a heart attack and was scared to stay by herself for a short time.  It had just snowed and the street still had snow on it, it was also street cleaning day and I didn't think that those jokers would clean the streets with snow on it.  The Parking Authority illegally mail me a ticket.  I fought it and lost.  I had to pay the 100+ fine.  Yes, I'm still angry about that ticket, I was only in the house maybe 30 minutes and came right out to run back to the store.

The corruption in the City of Philadelphia is amazing!  How can the Citizens of this City can tolerate it I have no idea!  The Mayor Nutter wanted to raise the rate of the property tax, yet there are Citizens in this City that NEVER pays property tax.  There are Citizens in this City that pays property tax that they made ''arrangements'' to have it lowered to a point that the house should be in the slums, but its in the prime section of the City.  We have property that is worth millions of dollars in this City and they DO NOT have to pay property tax for 10 years!!!!!  You heard me right, a 10 year tax abatement.  And what do they do when the time is almost up?  MOVE!!  Yes, they will move and they will NOT have to pay property tax for ANOTHER 10 YEARS.  But the ordinary Citizen that has to scrape by and do without has to worry about paying their property tax.  There are many senior Citizens in this town that are scared to death that they will lose their home if the tax is raised, but the Citizens that can afford to buy a new house whatever the amount, doesn't have to worry about paying property taxes for 10 years. 

Whew!  Is there more?  Yes!  But I'll go back now to trying to hit the Big One!!  Maybe I can buy that new house and don't pay property taxes for 10 years?