Life in the Ville by Jimmy Del Ponte

Have you seen those robot looking things all over the city? The one in the photo is on Holland St. in front of Harvard Vanguard. I hear they are all over the city. Supposedly it takes a photo of illegally stopped or parked in a no parking zone. We are quickly running out of precious parking spaces in Somerville.

Here’s what social media is saying. Comments are in quotes.

“I’ll tell you what it is … it’s an absolute waste of money! Can’t give the workers a raise for over 3 years but let’s pay to get a robot to take pictures of cars parked illegally. Terrible!” (agreed)

“They are there to see if you park in no parking. They send you a ticket if they catch you. Funny how they can do that but when there was talk about putting cameras through the city a lot of the new Somerville folks were screaming invasion of privacy but apparently these are not.”

“I’ve been told my Handicapped placard no longer gets me free parking in a metered space. Glad I moved to NH!”

“Are they trying to take away parking control officers’ jobs. I mean how much did the taxpayers pay for these when we already have parking control officers that we pay to give parking tickets”

“Next thing you know, people are gonna put cameras on their porches so hard-working thieves get identified when stealing. What has this world come to?”

I’m glad my street has plenty of free parking you just have to watch out for street cleaning days. I guess there’s no real answer to the question of when will they stop taking away parking spots for city folks.

By the way, they did a great job paving Highland Ave. near the high school.