CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – I consider myself a friend to law enforcement. I appreciate the risks the officers take to protect us. It is a demanding and dangerous job.
I do not support belligerent policing. That is, the type of law enforcement that sours the relationship between the police and the public.
For instance, did you know that Wausau has a bicycle registration ordinance? Yes. Every bicycle that travels on city streets is to be registered. $10 violation if it isn’t. Yet, I suspect the number of bicycle citations handed out by Wausau PD is very few… perhaps none. It defies common sense for an officer to turn on the lights or sirens of their squad car for bicycle enforcement. Parents wouldn’t tolerate their kids having that kind of contact with the police. Bicycle registration enforcement creates ill will between police and citizens. In short, heavy-handed enforcement of the city’s bicycle registration ordinance is more trouble than it’s worth.
If you follow my commentaries, you know that police ticketed everyone in my neighborhood was ticketed for parking on the even side of the street on an odd-number night. The tickets were issued at 3:30am. The streets in my residential neighborhood are empty. Which side of the street they parked on is… irrelevant. The $25 tickets left on their windshield are a waste of police manpower and create ill-will between me and my neighbors and the cops.
Someone should explain to me that value of being the city with the most-strick parking enforcement. Certainly it’s not good for business downtown. Who will shop if they get a ticket. When I go out for lunch on Tuesday, I see the automated parking enforcement car circling outside the pizzeria. If I’m ever ticketed because I didn’t finish my meal within the 15 minute parking limit, I’m likely to go somewhere else for lunch. Ticketing cars that are parked outside peoples’ homes tends to tick them off for no good reason.
What’s the point of that?
Chris Conley
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