For South Loop agent, glitch means parking tix

06/22/2009 3:00 PM

By Micah Maidenberg
Editor

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Chicago Journal file art

Tribune transportation columnist John Hilkevitch wrote a fascinating piece last week about how a glitch resulted in South Loop real estate agent (and an occasional source for Chicago Journal on neighborhood real estate matters) Tom Feddor getting repeatedly ticketed for parking violations he didn't commit. According to the story, Feddor has recieved 77 tickets this year alone.
Feddor's license plate number is zero, and that's what caused the problem.
Here's Hilkevitch:

A glitch occurred at the Chicago Department of Revenue involving Feddor's 0 plates being used during tests of ticketing equipment. The error prompted the cascade of ticket notices to land in his mailbox, city officials determined after launching an internal investigation based on calls from the Tribune.

Feddor challenged most of the tickets:

He said he filed challenges to most of the tickets and trekked to the city's administrative courthouse on Superior Street about every three weeks with notices in hand. The hearing officers dismissed almost all of them, but it wasn't how Feddor preferred to spend his life.
"Almost every judge's answer to the problem was to get rid of the plates," Feddor said.

Hilkevitch also got into the history of Feddor's low, low plate number.

The highly prized 0 license plate was assigned in 1971 to Feddor's grandfather, Robert Lamkin, a dairy farmer magnate and businessman from Watson, Ill., near Effingham.
In a 1999 letter to the editor published in the Tribune, Lamkin's daughter, Nancy Lamkin Olson, wrote, "Whenever someone would comment on his plate and say, 'You must be someone important,' my dad would reply, 'No, I'm just nothin'.' "

The full story is definitely worth a read.
The Parking Meter Geek blogged about the story too.


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