We've all felt dread when we see a parking enforcement officer standing at our car. Well, it cuts both ways. Gladys Gray has been a parking enforcement officer in Berkeley since 1989, and she sometimes dreads writing tickets. She's had people throw things at her, make their index and thumb fingers look like a gun and pull the trigger, and folks routinely honk at her with their thumbs down. She's seen people injure themselves trying to get to her before the ticket. One woman was running so fast, she fell and slide right underneath Gray. She asked the woman if she was okay, and Gray laughs as she remembers the woman's only response was, "did I get a ticket?"

Gray was at Berkeley's City Council meeting Tuesday night to give her opinion of the proposed parking policy amendment that would disallow the City of Berkeley to ticket people who arrive to move their cars. She thinks the idea's flawed because she's seen people abuse the system by waiting in cafes monitoring their cars, then run out at the last minute to avoid getting tickets. This is a problem, according to Gray, because there's so little parking in Berkeley. If people run out to feed their meters when they've exceeded the time limit, there's less turnover and consequently less parking.