New officer tickets mayor's car -- twice

KINGSTON, N.Y., Feb. 24 (UPI) -- A part-time parking-enforcement officer, new on the job, ticketed a New York-area mayor's car for parking at an expired meter -- twice.

Jeremy Blaber, 24, first saw Kingston, N.Y., Mayor Shayne Gallo's 2008 blue Subaru parked at an expired meter in a city business district after just two weeks on the job, the Kingston Daily Freeman reported.

He said he didn't know the car was the mayor's.

A week later he spotted the same car parked at an expired meter on the same street, he told the newspaper.

This time he knew it was the mayor's.

But that didn't stop Blaber. He slapped another parking ticket on the windshield.

Gallo, who took office Jan. 1 and is a lawyer, told the newspaper he was guilty of the parking violations and paid $40 in fines.

"It was a typical scenario," Gallo said. "I thought I had put enough [quarters] in the meter, and obviously I didn't. I learned an expensive lesson."

As for Blaber, Gallo said the parking-enforcement officer was "very efficient in the performance of his duties."

"Good job, Jeremy," he said.

Blaber told the newspaper when he was hired he was told parking enforcement "was all about fairness."

He said that when a car owner recently argued with him over a ticket, he was able to say he had just ticketed the mayor's car.

"He felt good about that -- that it was being enforced all the way around," Blaber told the Freeman.