One More Senate Vote for DC
Senator Mark Begich
I have great news to share with you. Yesterday Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich declared victory over incumbent Senator (and convicted felon) Ted Stevens in Alaska.
This victory brings another supporter of DC voting rights to Washington, and replaces one of the worst U.S. Senators when it comes to District of Columbia issues.
Senator-elect Begich and I met earlier this fall. He expressed his support of the DC Voting Rights Act, and lamented that it was shameful that the District did not have representation in Congress. Senator-elect Begich is a welcome addition to the U.S. Senate and will be a friend to the people of the District as he goes about representing the people of Alaska.
I was proud to support Mark Begich with a donation from the Free and Equal DC Fund, and I thank all of you who contributed to his campaign via our ActBlue page. When District of Columbia residents get involved in congressional races outside the District, we can make a difference and advance our own local issues.
Please help me and step up to the plate one more time to help Senator-elect Begich pay down his campaign debt and prepare for any Republican Party legal challenges. You can make a secure contribution by clicking here:
http://www.actblue.com/page/dcforbegich
Thanks again for everything you do to help the District!
October 30th, 2009 at 11:22 am
Hello,
Craig Boseman here. The DC Department of Motor Vehicles has completely lost any data showing that I paid any parking tickets beginning with my very first ticket that I received in 1996. Mind you, I have been driving since 1992. Within the DMV’s system, which was changed over some years ago and never recovered my payment information, there are no records showing any payment of any ticket I have ever made including a $2,000 payment I made sometime between November 2002 & April 2003 restoring my DC driver’s license at that time (my former financial institute is researching this information now). These same tickets that I paid for are now showing up within your system and you are charging me for these same tickets again. This means there has been a loss of my payment information for 17 years (I first got my license in 1992). This is due to a loss of data, corrupt, or no backup/restore within their computer systems which is supposed to store this information. Conveniently enough, their system was able to record all the tickets that were issued to me, although no payment information was restored to the database. You can look on their site right now and see that they are going to be doing maintenance on their system this weekend. Who do I need to speak with when the DMV loses records because of a malfunctioning backup process? I don’t delete someone’s records and then tell them you’ll have to pay all over again because we lost the data. What government process is this? This is fraud! So now I am being charged with tickets going back to 1996 that I paid for already. I am now being told that I have to prove that I paid the tickets. So basically, the DMV loses my payment data and then tells me to pay the tickets again since they cannot find my information. I have obtained tags for new vehicles, renewed & reinstated my license, transferred licenses, & been pulled over by police and cleared because my license was valid with no tickets pending. All during this time period where they have no record of any of my ticket payments. How could I have been able to do this if I have never paid a ticket before?
I have gone to my former bank institution and will have to pay a substantial fee to have them go through my financial statements between 1996 – 2006 (’96 was the year I got my first ticket; 2006 is when I closed that bank account) so that I can get copies of my bank transactions to prove this. The DMV’s computer network aught to be able to pull this information, but when I went to 301 C Street NW to retrieve it, Darnell Fountain II, the Hearing Support Manager, told me that looking up my records was not his job. Instead, he told me he had other customers he needed to get to and that I needed to move on. He did not bother to look up any of my information, nor did he have the common courtesy to find out why there is no data stating that I have not paid any tickets in the history of my driving record. Who’s managing this type of government service? I have had a driver’s license since 1992 and have paid DC Motor Vehicles over $3,000 in tickets since then and they have lost this data and are now charging me for these same tickets. Computers are supposed to store this data. Why does the DMV not have any information on the tickets that I have paid since I got a license back in 1992? Furthermore, I should not have to pay money to a financial institution to look up financial records, when my driving record and payments should be stored within the DMV database. I paid my taxes for this? What does Darnell Fountain get paid to do if he refuses to look up my driving record & open investigations? I had to take a day off work for him to tell me, “That’s not my job.” Then what is his job and why are my tax dollars going to him?
I do business as well; nowhere near the government level of course. But I would be doing bad business to charge someone for something that I have lost the records for. My bank will be giving me some information within the next few days concerning my finances during this period. I have left the DMV Director, Lucinda Babers, two voice messages and have not received a return call yet. I take names for confirmation purposes so that I have a valid record of what I did and who I spoke to. One of the DMV phone operators, Mr. Walker (#3733006), tells me that he could not give me his first name. Now, we all know that there is more than one Mr. Walker working for the DMV. I even work with a Mr. Walker myself. When I asked for his first name, he told me that he could not give me that information and that it is written in the DMV employee handbook. So when I call back to talk to Mr. Walker, since he knows my situation, they’ll ask me what his first name is. Well that’s just great. So this is how your DMV is being run Ms. Babers? A rep that won’t give me his first name out of spite and a Hearing Support Manager that does not want to do what he gets paid to do? This is what my tax dollars are being used for?
I would like an investigation into why my ticket payment records are not showing up, as well as a lift from the National Driver’s Registry until this investigation is finished so that I can renew my Maryland driver’s license. Charging me for tickets because you lost my payment information is not a satisfactory form of Motor Vehicle policy. I do not have the time to take leave from work to go to the DMV every other day so Mr. Fountain can sit there and do nothing. This appears to be something that the DC DMV plans to neglect since no one can give me an answer as to why there are no records of ticket payments that I have made and no one plans on doing there job to find out why. I left numerous of emails and voice messages and have not received a response from any DMV staff.
I have moved a number of times since 1996 so I do not have all of my receipts and documentation to my ticket payments, which is why we have this new thing called computers to store that information. Data retention is a standard seven year window for most government agencies so why doesn’t DMV have these records? Furthermore, it is not on my behalf to locate these records if you lost them. I paid my taxes so that the DMV could do that. The sad part is there is no accountability on the DMV’s part. No word from Ms. Babers or anyone at their offices.
I have no problem settling tickets that I have not paid for. I am not going to pay another $2,000 for tickets because the DMV lost my payment information. They cannot even pull up any $25 parking tickets I paid for and there have been numerous of these. I do not contest that I have a large number of parking infractions due to DC’s lack of ample parking. The majority of these tickets were for parking within 25 ft of a stop sign in front of my apartment building where there was no parking anywhere else. All of these infractions were settled in 2003 when I made a huge payment of approximately $2,000 at the K Street office that has gotten lost within DMV’s system due to a malfunctioning backup computer system. Not to mention the numerous of other tickets I paid for that they have no record of now. Yet, I have been allowed to carry on making vehicle transactions, getting new tags, pulled over by police and showing a valid license within their system…
If my license is not renewed within the next few days I could lose my job because of an expired license. This needs to resolved as soon as possible and I am not getting the necessary response or help from DMV staff. I have left a number of messages for the Director as well as sent numerous emails and have not heard a thing. Who’s is in charge of this massacre? I have to send emails to the DC executive offices just to get anything done. Since the employees at the 301 C Street office are not compentent enough to perform basic procedural tasks, is there anyone checking their email or computer systems? This will cause for legal action if I lose my job because of this. This is an outrage for a government agency to respond in this manner and this needs to be looked into.
Thank you,
Craig Boseman
301-499-1364
301-499-1017
October 30th, 2009 at 11:23 am
The DMV has lost my payment data and now wants me to pay for every ticket I have ever gotten.