About

It’s simple: this site is about making changes that will better our community. The following is the story that prompted me to create this website.

My Story

My name is Jeremy, and I have been living in Winchester since 2012. After two years of commuting to work via bike, four safety incidents prompted me to reconsider my mode of transportation. For the record, they were:

Getting hit by a car.
Sliding on black ice at a dangerous, dark intersection and falling headfirst off my bike in the middle of traffic.
A road rage incident involving a person in a large SUV who didn’t think bikes should be allowed on the road.
Almost getting pushed off the road (and down a steep hill) by a car at high speed.

Since I didn’t have an off-street parking spot, I parked my car overnight on the street every night for two years. And then something very strange happened: I got a parking ticket for overnight parking.

After four years of living in Winchester, I was completely unaware of the overnight parking ban. I went to the police station to argue the ticket, but they basically just shrugged. I then talked to the parking officer in town hall, and his response was “rules are rules.” So I went back to the police station and asked where I was supposed to park my car, but I didn’t get an answer. However, I also realized that if I had only been ticketed once in 2 years, my chances of getting another ticket seemed rather slim. So I did the only thing that seemed practical: I continued to park my car overnight on the street.

Imagine living in the same town for 4 years, getting a parking ticket, and this is the conversations you have with the parking officer:
—“Why did I get a ticket?”
—“We have an overnight parking ban here.”
—“Since when?”
–“1936.”

Over the next few years of living in Winchester, my car would be ticketed a maximum of two times per year. The police would always ticket at the beginning of the winter season, and then the rest of the year I would be fine. But then things would take an unexpected turn.

In 2021, my car was keyed. I had no idea who would have done it, nor did I have any idea why. Then about a year later, my new car was egged. And then it was egged again. Finally, I became suspicious that perhaps the neighbors didn’t want me parking next to them.

A few months later, my suspicions were confirmed when my son was told by the same neighbors that neither he nor I should be parking in front of their house. In the meantime, I had learned that at least two other neighbors had had their cars vandalized while parked on the same street, and one of them had also received a rude note on their car. Ironically, these neighbors thought we were the ones being jerks by having the nerve to park our cars on the road next to their houses.

Although these neighbors hated us for parking in front of their homes, they never told me directly so I had no way of knowing. The truth is: if they had just said something to me, I would have made an effort to park somewhere else. But instead of talking to me, it turns out that they had been complaining about us to the Winchester Police Department for years.

Due to neighbors complaints, I have paid hundreds of dollars in fines. Additionally, I have had paint on 5 different panels of two different cars damaged due to vandalism from these same neighbors. But the story doesn’t end here.

This past winter season 2023-2024, the number of tickets issued near my home inexplicably increased dramatically. There was no warning given that this would happen, and the people who normally park on these streets overnight have been in shock. The parking regulations haven’t changed; instead somebody made a policy decision to specifically target our streets.

In the past, I have talked with multiple people regarding the situation, including at the police department and the town hall. Last year, I wrote up a report and spoke to the Winchester Traffic Advisory Committee about the need for changes, but no action was taken because one of the members thought that we were the problem for ignoring the rules and couldn’t look past that fact and realize that the rule shouldn’t exist in the first place. (The Winchester Traffic Advisory Committee has since been disbanded.)

One troubling issue regarding the ban is that only a minority of people are negatively affected, which allows the majority of people to ignore the issue without consequence. Imagine, for instance, if a town refused to accommodate for disabled people because they are a small group that can easily be ignored.

Harming Communities

If a town has a regulation that is rarely enforced, it is usually due to the fact that the regulation is overly-broad in scope. This may not seem to pose a problem to people who think they are not affected, but in fact such regulations hurt everybody.

The town hall and police department are affected because they have to spend their time and energy dealing with resident complaints about people who aren’t following the rules. Some residents get angry because they think everyone should comply with the rules (no matter how unnecessary), while others are affected when the town or police department enforce these pointless regulations. It is thus extremely important for the health of the community to ensure that unnecessary regulations are eliminated or updated in a timely manner.