James Ochs wants me to tell his story mostly, he says, as a tribute to every other poor sucker in this city who met his same fate.
I will do so because I once was him. I cannot tell you how many street sweeping parking tickets I received in my time living in Denver.
So James Ochs, I figure, is a Denver Everyman. Like him, I likely will go to my grave never once figuring out the street signs in this city.
Exactly when are the street sweepers coming? Is this the third Wednesday of the month or the second? And who, exactly, has time to know such things? It is how they got me.
In James Ochs’ case, he sort of knew the day the sweepers were arriving.
He is 53 years old and has lived within a few blocks of his home on Newton Street in Denver all of his life.
All he wanted to do was mow his lawn.
To get at his mower in the back portion of his garage, though, he would have to move his truck.
A warehouseman by trade, James Ochs has been out of work for more than six months now. Any parking tickets would just blow up his budget.
He figured he could drive the truck to the street, get his lawnmower out and put the truck right back.
It was 10:30 in the morning. Sure the sign in front of his house read said no parking between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.
That is a big time window. There is no chance, he figured, he would ever get a ticket.
He ran back, checked the gas and oil in the mower, pushed it out front, and ran back to the truck.
Ticket.
“It couldn’t have been even 10 minutes,” Ochs laments.
He is ticked. It is why rather than mowing his lawn, he waited for the sweepers. He would wait for a very long time.
At 1:40, they finally arrived. He tried to wave the first one down. He wanted a supervisor’s name — anyone’s name. It drove right past him.
He does the same to the second and third sweeper that come up the block. None stop.
He is beside himself when Liz, his wife and an employee of the city, arrives home.
She tells him to get over it, that there is no way he would win a challenge to the ticket. Just pay it, she tells him.
On Thursday, he went to city hall. He decides to contest the street sweeping violation.
A city attorney’s representative hears him out. The best he can do, he says, is knock 10 bucks off the $25 fine. James Ochs pays it.
It does not satisfy him.
“Is this how the city is making its money?” the still-livid man says into my telephone. “I was just getting my mower out!”
It is, I tell him, a part of living in Denver that is just unsavory.
“But it was 10 minutes!” he shouts again. “I’m out of work, having a hell of a time making ends meet, just to eat. And they do this?”
I ask him about next month. What would he do on the third Wednesday if confronted by the same lawnmower-in-the-back- of-the-garage situation?
He thinks for a very long time.
“OK,” James Ochs said, “I would park my truck on the other side of the street.
“It is still not right.”
Bill Johnson writes Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Reach him at 303-954-2763 or wjohnson@denverpost.com.
