We're relatively new to Burien, having only purchased our home here a little over a year ago. We love Burien, and fully support the local businesses and the city's growth and burgeoning prosperity.

That said, we're a little tired of supporting the city's burgeoning prosperity through ridiculous parking tickets. Please understand that I'm not in any way saying that parking enforcement shouldn't be done, or even that the tickets I'm referring to were written in error.

My beef is with the fact that it seems as if our local parking enforcement officers get joy in eking out any tiny little infraction they can stumble upon, in order to strengthen the city's coffers.

A perfect example happened this past weekend. My 21-year-old, full-time college student niece was visiting, and parked on the shoulder of the road across from my house on 155th Street.

As anyone that's familiar with 155th knows, there isn't a lot (if any) clearly defined shoulder parking, and there's certainly not a lot of enforcement of the vegetation overgrowth that slims down the available parking even further.

She parked her car on the shoulder of the road, as far off as she could get it without parking in the trees/bushes, leaving about 1.5 inches of her tires on the blacktop.

Yes, I admit, TECHNICALLY she was parked on the road, that's in no way in dispute. But why does the city of Burien feel it's a good idea to ticket someone for such a miniscule infraction, when there are plenty of opportunities to handle REAL crime a mere block or two up the street? A $50 fine for those 1.5 inches of tire seems like an overly excessive punishment for the crime.

Is the city really in such dire straights financially that they feel the need to further burden the good, tax-paying citizens in order to relieve financial strain? Or was this particular officer (who seems to pop up on most of the "questionable" tickets in the neighborhood) simply bored on his early morning shift and looking to make his quota?

We may never have the answers to these questions, but as someone who would like to see Burien become the next "up and coming" area of Seattle, I'd hate for this handling of their citizens to discourage that growth.

Kari Edwards
Burien