Same name, different car Woman fights for refund from Parking Utility
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Denise X - whose name is being withheld to protect the other Denise - had her car booted on June 23. But even after she proved to the Hoboken Parking Utility that she'd paid for her parking permit, she is still waiting for her refund check in the mail.
Denise said that after her car was ticketed and booted, she was told by the Parking Utility that she had not renewed her parking permit for 2008. However, Denise went to the HPU office at City Hall and showed a parking employee her bank statement proving that her check was cashed by the HPU in February.
She said that the Parking Utility told her that due to a clerical error, they had confused her with another Denise X on her street.
Sent to court
The day she was ticketed, Denise went to the HPU office to pay the $45 parking ticket and $150 booting fee.
She wanted the money reimbursed, but believed she would have had to deal with two separate court matters regarding the ticket and the booting fee. So she decided to focus on the $150.
She said the HPU told her she'd have to go to court to deal with it, even though they'd admitted a mistake.
Denise was forced to miss almost a full day of work to go to court on July 22 for the mix-up, she said.
"Going to court was truly a waste of my time as well as the judge's, the prosecutor's, and the Parking Utility's," Denise wrote in an e-mail to Parking Utility Director John Corea on Aug. 4.
An outraged Denise also wrote in her e-mail that a woman from the Parking Utility even told her to consider changing her name on her checks to distinguish her from the other Denise X of First Street.
In court, Denise showed the prosecutor her documentation of paying the permit, and filled out a form for reimbursement.
After getting a favorable judgment, she contacted the Parking Utility for her refund in early August. She said she was told that the refund would have to go before the City Council as part of normal procedure first. At each council meeting, the council has to approve expenses including towing refunds, sometimes as much as thousands of dollars. This is not always due to the HPU's mistakes. In a recent case, the city had to tow cars downtown due to flooding, and then had to reimburse the drivers for the towing costs after they picked up their cars.
Denise called it the whole ordeal "a huge inconvenience." She wrote in her e-mail to the HPU that she'd requested a few times on the phone to speak with Corea directly, but as she said in her e-mail to him, "[I]t seemed like no one was willing to let me speak to you."
Getting repaid
Denise received an e-mail reply from Corea on Aug. 7. Corea said that he would "look into this matter and try to expedite your reimbursement."
She also was pleased to receive a call from a Parking Utility worker on Aug. 7 saying that her reimbursement check had been sent.
Corea confirmed this past Wednesday that she had been sent a check, just hours before the next meeting of the City Council that night.
As of this past Wednesday, Aug. 13, Denise said she hadn't received the check.
Regarding the clerical error, Corea said, "It doesn't happen much."
No mix-up?
Denise said last week that she thinks the Parking Utility may have stepped up booting cars "to make up for a budget gap."
She also was suspicious of the Parking Utility's claim that they confused her with the other Denise, but Corea restated the claim last week.
She said that receiving the refund was "a no-win situation" because she had to lose time at work to go to court over the issue.
She said she didn't think she should have had to go to court, since the HPU realized their mistake.
Denise said if she had to do it all over again, she would have just paid the towing fees and not bothered with court.
Fourth Ward Council Dawn Zimmer, in whose ward that part of First Street is located, said on Thursday that she will look into the matter.
She said that if any other resident finds him or herself in this type of predicament, they should reach out to their councilperson to help resolve the issue.
For questions or comments on this story, e-mail tcarroll@hudsonreporter.com.
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