As noted here at CR, the totally evil city of Santa Monica, California hammered me with an absurd ticket for "blocking the intersection."

...

Now, the system is supposed to work like this:  They give you a ticket, then they send you a payment envelope and also put an online payment option (that might not be available for 21 days after issuance of the ticket) on the court's website.

Except, however, given their extreme need for illicit revenue, the city is giving out so many tickets that they can't actually process them by the appearance date for which you have signed to appear. [This is, after all, the equivalent of a parking ticket, or so I was advised by the cub scout patrolman who gave me (and the person behind me) the tickets.

So, the court system having failed to process the ticket, I was forced to leave San Diego at 4:30 am in order to arrive at Santa Monica by 8:30 am.  Why so early?  Well, you see, Santa Monica is surrounded by non-functional freeways -- or you might say, a giant parking lot -- through which you can only proceed at about 7 miles per hour at morning drive time.

I finally got to Santa Monica without mishap.  Had to pay $8 for parking.  Went to court, stood in line for an hour (as they are not really ramped up to handle the amount of "business" they are generating -- but then again, we are lawbreaking scum, ar we not?  (Reminded me of Alice's Restaurant ...)

My ticket, of course, was not in the system.  Nor did I at any time receive an actual "bail schedule" that would tell me what the posted rate is for this ticket.  But, for those of you following my saga of Totally Evil Santa Monica, you will recall that the cub scout partrollman told me they did not print the bail schedule on the ticket because "it changes so often."

You betcha!  In fact, as far as I can tell, the fine is expressly tailored to the individual lawbreakee.  So, although the posted signs at the intersections say a fine "up to $500", my actual official fine was ...

Well, it seems to me the court worker to whom I was paying and her supervisor just made a number up out of thin air.  "This guy looks like ... $256!"  Because the ticket was not actually in the system anywhere and there does not seem to be a published fine/bail schedule at all in the banana republic of Santa Monica.  To do me a favor, so as not to require me to come back for yet another visit to Shakedown City, they "entered my ticket" into the system, threw a dart at the "pick-a-fine" dart board (or whatever was the fine selection method) and required me to pay $256.00.

Which is, after all, somewhat less than the $500 I had budgeted by eating rice & beans for a month.  I guess I should say, "YaY!"

It's quite interesting how much uglier Santa Monica is when you hate the place.  Having paid for parking and paid my dues to society, I went for a walk-around downtown, even considering (gulp!) spending money and buying breakfast.  (But, I escaped with only paying Shakedown City the tax on a cup of coffee.)  It was grey and overcast, there is a lot of messy construction going on and I had to dodge the homeless people (though not as many as I come across in San Diego, home of mustered-out sailors).

So, my view is that I must not visit Santa Monica until my spent tourist dollars equate to $256 in sales tax.  Which is, I don't know, $3200?  That is a lot of restaurant visits elsewhere.

Did I ever mention I hate Santa Monica?