Justice delayed

When I walked in the door after work today, Lori greeted me with the news that I had a piece of mail waiting for me from Multnomah County Circuit Court. I haven't been nailed with a parking violation in months, but I had a suspicion of what was in the envelope.

Sure enough, there it was: a $25 check refunding part of my bail for a ticket issued -- can you believe this? -- on April 18 of last year. Ten and a half months ago? Are you kidding me?

Last summer, I wrote a blog post, "Vindication!" in which I happily noted that the court had given me a $24 refund for a questionable parking citation issued in October 2009. When that check arrived, I initially thought it was a partial refund for the April 18 ticket -- a $45 whopper that greeted us at the end of an otherwise splendid Sunday morning walk in the Southwest Portland hills.

I hadn't purchased time on the meter because I mistakenly believed that paid parking hours at the city park where we'd left our car didn't take effect until after Memorial Day. Wrong!

Nevertheless, because I felt I'd explained myself so well in a letter of appeal that I sent to the court in May, I confidently wrote that I expected to receive a full or partial refund for the second citation by Christmas. Wrong!

I was off by two months. My $25 refund check was dated 2/25/11. How's that for symmetry? Turns out I paid a $20 penalty -- instead of the original $45. And it took nearly a year for the creaky machinery of the courts to deliver only a partial refund.

I could grouse about this a little more but at this point I suppose the better thing to do is to consider this an unexpected windfall. My own little stimulus. Yeah!