It's not stolen, that implies an intent to do wrong. Per the NYPD's response (and given their candor, I find no reason to believe otherwise) it's clear this was a training issue and the officers writing the tickets were doing their duty to the best of their knowledge at the time.
And having said that, yes I believe the money should be returned, and probably will.
OP Here. This is an amazing response from a city agency. In the end of the day, agencies rarely interact directly with citizens. The normal response to someone analyzing your data is to close up and have no comment. The fact that they admit the mistake is huge, and big step forward for Open Data and agency interaction.
I hope I'm not trivializing the value of your work. You have done the general public a great service by finding these erroneous citations. Thank you for that!
All I was saying is that there is a strong moral case for people who were wrongly fined in this manner to receive refunds on their fines, and I think the city agency should do that (but almost certainly won't).
I think it is a very positive thing that the OP accomplished. And yes, I think the city should pay back for the wrongly issued parking tickets.
The official admits there was an error and defines why it happened. This in itself opens the door for the wrongly ticketed parties to claim a refund, since their is the admission by the city official.
Now, who's going to inform those wrongly-ticketed citizens? Certainly not the city. It will cost more for them to re-analyze, and contact all of those people. They should, but it will not happen.
Great work by the OP! Glad to see NYPD in a positive light.
Slightly OT: I was born and raised in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and I remember people used to double-park, or do whatever they pleased, and rack up hundreds of dollars (thousands today) in parking tickets, and then bargain the total fine down to a fraction of the fines. It was cheaper than legally paying monthly parking rates!
The city certainly won't come forward and dish out the cash voluntarily. It would take a class action to accomplish the task. We'll see in the coming weeks/months if such an action takes form.
This may be illegal under sovereign immunity, though they could attempt to sue a county or municipality.
In Florida, a long-contested issue over red light cameras resulted in a judgement that having their tickets contested in special City Hall hearings, rather than through state traffic laws, was illegal. If a similar case is happening here, they could attempt that lawsuit, and if they win, then attempt their class-action.
You also have to get around statute of limitations and notice of claim limits for new york, not to mention shared liability. Remember: New York City parking violation tickets can be disputed as defective without going to court. You can even request an online hearing! So a court may throw out any argument that a class-action lawsuit might claim that it was unreasonable for _all_ of those people to be unable to file a dispute.
Interestingly, I found this brochure on their website that mentions code 67 (pedestrian ramps), but does not at all mention the exception for ramps in the middle of the street with no sign or marked walkway. It should really have been updated after 2008: http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/finance/downloads/pdf/translation...
OP Here. If you go through my blog, you'll see that I have pushed for change from many agencies. Scroll to bottom of article for list. And yes, I will be rechecking.
