‘Cities love meters – they are a “captive” income source. … unless you know someone or are a “public figure”, the city will tow your car if you have too many tickets. A tow in Portland will cost a person at least $250.00 to get their car back. Thus they are using extortion and fear to ensure you meter when you park and if you fail to do that if you do not pay a parking ticket they will tow your vehicle’ (http:/ /www. taphilo.com/ tom/ parkingmeters.shtml).
Since the Georgetown City Council has so far refused to provide information about the contract they signed with National Parking Systems (NPS)/Smart City Solutions to acquire, maintain, and manage parking meters on the grounds that its openness has caused the city to lose good projects before, I thought it useful to find out a bit more about parking meters in general and also to try to understand what there can be