Recently, A&E launched “Parking Wars,” a reality series chronicling the parking division in Philadelphia and Detroit and their encounters with the parking-impaired. I admit, I’m hooked. As I watched episode after episode, I found myself in awe at the sheer amount of rage that one dreaded slip of paper can instill in someone.

As someone who has dumped my own fair share of hard-earned dollars into parking citations, I can understand why the ticketed become irate; times are tough and tickets are expensive.

Curious why anyone would subject themselves to a job where harassment is guaranteed, I set my bitterness aside and asked the city if I could hang out with a parking enforcement officer. I mentally prepared myself for a deluge of verbal abuse, and hoped I didn’t get anything thrown at my face.

At 8:30 a.m. Friday morning, I met with Officer Hatch, one of 50 full-time parking enforcement officers patrolling the city.

In January, Hatch will have been ticketing for five years. He previously worked as a Downtown Guide for the Downtown Sacramento Partnership. The experience actually comes in handy in his current role, since officers are regularly approached by tourists asking for directions and information.

Even if others don’t, Hatch loves his job. While many nine-to-fivers are tied to their cubicle and have supervisors breathing down their necks, parking officers get to roam free. Hatch says that he loves the freedom.

This freedom includes roaming 22,000 on-street parking spaces, broken up into 23 “beats.” This includes two neighborhood beats and three street-cleaning beats in additional to 20 regular.

Since non-city employees aren’t allowed in the official parking enforcement vehicles (a Prius or those odd-looking “carts”) we set out on an improvised walking beat starting at City Hall on 9th and I Streets, up to N and 16th streets and back.

Before I arrived, Hatch had already issued three citations since the start of his shift at 7 a.m. A quick mental calculation told me that meant Hatch had already generated a good chunk of revenue for the city.

The average ticket for an expired meter costs around $50, including a recently-added $12 "pass through fee” imposed by the state. The city is required to pass this on to citizens.

Thanks a lot, California.

More serious infractions such as altering residential permits or parking in designated handicap spaces can burn a hefty $500 hole in violators’ wallets. This might explain why the 235,196 citations issued in the 2010 fiscal year generated a stunning $8.3 million in revenue.

I asked Hatch about a recent story I read about a disgruntled former parking officer. The officer claimed, among many other allegations, that officers are given quotas.

Hatch dismissed this, explaining that setting quotas is actually illegal. He continued on to say that supervisors do, however, know the average number of tickets that should be issued for each beat.

So technically, an officer could be reprimanded for not issuing enough tickets, right?

It seems like a gray area but since Hatch was adamant about not having quotas, I later checked with Linda Tucker, Media and Communications Specialist for the Department of Transportation.

Tucker explained, “We do not and never have set quotas. The average would just mean what historically that particular block or block(s) might yield in terms of violations, but this is in no way tied to the rating of an officer’s overall performance. There may be many reasons why an average may fluctuate: weather, special events, the economy...”

Quota or not, I was surprised that by 10 a.m. Hatch still hadn’t issued a single ticket in my presence and the tally sheet in my notes remained blank. I was even more surprised, disappointed even, that there wasn’t a single insult yelled at us by an angry passerby. I started to feel slightly let down by "Parking Wars."

However, as the clock ticked on, we gained some momentum and Hatch began doling out an occasional citation. On the third ticket, the vehicle owner, who hadn’t even bothered to pay, walked up mid-ticket and I braced myself for an exchange of words.

“He’s just doing his job,” the driver said to me. He took the ticket, thanked Hatch and went along on his way. I couldn’t believe that a driver expressed appreciation for being cited! Hatch was surprised too and told me that it is far from a common reaction.

“I’m the guy everybody loves to hate,” said Hatch, half smirking.

Desperate for something juicy at this point, I asked him about any run-ins with ticketing “victims” gone mad. Hatch told me that while he hasn’t experienced any bouts of extreme ticket rage himself, his colleagues have had coffee thrown on them and been spit on more than a few times.

He gets yelled at two to three times per week, occasionally being “flipped off” for good measure. The most common insult he hears?

“Get a real job!”

“I’m still wondering what a ‘real job’ is,” Hatch laughed, obviously unfazed by the harassment as if it's all just part of the job.

Not surprisingly, he recounted many situations when drivers accused Hatch of targeting them or issuing a ticket for no reason.

“There’s a lot of people that will hate us no matter what, even if we’re right,” said Hatch. “You just have to stay calm, that’s the important thing.”

In addition to arguments, he said he gets a healthy helping of excuses. One of his "favorites"?

“I was just inside for one minute!”

Both the officer and the violator know dang well it takes more than a couple of minutes to order coffee, pick up dry cleaning, etc. so you’re better off feeding the meter than using that line.

On the flip side are those that have a "bring on the tickets" attitude. Hatch said there are definitely repeat offenders within some beats. One of these offenders is a local nightclub owner who is repeatedly cited for the same infractions, even having his car booted at one point for too many citations.

“Some people just don’t care,” he said.

While the harassment doesn’t ruffle his feathers, Hatch has a couple of parking pet peeves. The first is drivers who expect him to stop writing a ticket because their meter “just expired.” Hatch explained that this means nothing to the officer. “I have no way of knowing if they put any money in the meter at all.”

Admittedly, I have done this myself and I found myself feeling apologetic for blaming the officers. He’s right; they really don’t have a way of knowing.

However, this isn’t the case for “Pay and Display kiosks,” which give a more accurate readings of exactly when a driver put money in the machine. Hatch has a little more sympathy here.

“If it’s one or two minutes [expired] it’s not a huge deal,” Hatch said.

He’s also sympathetic to responsible drivers who opt to leave their vehicle in place while enjoying a few adult beverages. If a vehicle-owner approaches Hatch mid-ticketing and explains that they left their car instead of drinking and driving, it’s likely they will be sent on their way sans ticket.

I was happy to hear this, as most will likely agree that sometimes finding Tylenol and a Gatorade becomes a priority over getting to your car at 10 a.m. on the dot. One point for the parking enforcement team!

Hatch earned even more points for the parking division when he told me he will usually wait by a freshly-expired meter for a few minutes, giving the driver the benefit of the doubt.

Don't get too excited though.

If it’s twenty minutes? You might as well start writing out that $52 check.

Currently the city has 3,600 single space quarter-only meters and 300 kiosks, which accept multiple tenders. Those who have frantically searched in every nook and cranny of their car for quarters while running late for a meeting certainly understand the convenience of this.

Convenience and longevity (kiosks have an average lifespan of 10 years) seem like a win for both the city and the residents. Tucker said transitioning over to kiosks completely isn’t too far off.

“We are looking at phasing [in] single space meters that can accept credit cards in the not-so-distant future.”

In addition to pay kiosks, the city decided to make drivers’ lives even easier when they implemented the ability to contest tickets online. 

I asked Hatch how he feels about making it easier to contest the tickets he writes, and I caught another glimpse of his soft side. Hatch said he’s all for the system, since people don’t have to stand in line at Revenue Services, which can be a lengthy process.

As we continued on our beat, roaming the perimeters of the State Capitol, I noticed a trend. It seemed like more than half of the vehicles  belonged to disabled drivers.

“Generally, any government building has a ton of placards,” Hatch explained. I was astounded. Hatch, obviously used to the placard-mania, explained that there are so many placards that the city created an undercover “Disabled Placard Task Force” dedicated to regulating abuse of them.

While not a part of this task force, officers are responsible for confiscating expired and illegally-modified placards. During one shift, Hatch issued 14 tickets for expired placards.

From using markers to modify temporary residential permits to “posing” vehicles in photos to fight legitimate citations, Hatch’s stories proved Sacramentans are quite the sneaky (and crafty) bunch. He recalled one violator cutting the entire bottom portion off of a disabled placard, claiming it was issued to him that way. Another instance that stood out was the placard-holder who extended his own permit, punching a hole in the current year and taping the punched out circle into the expired year.

However, thanks to new photo-ticketing technology, it is more difficult to pull the wool over the city’s eyes. Officers’ ticketing guns now have cameras built into them, proving that a vehicle was in violation.

Oddly enough, I found myself grateful for a feature that makes officers' jobs easier. 

When I first met up with Hatch, I have to admit I was a disgruntled victim of the parking system. While it’s certainly a possibility that he was on his best behavior in the presence of media, this good behavior nonetheless melted my bitterness away and replaced it with a bit of unexpected sympathy.

Like the guy said, “He’s just doing his job.”

Visit the City of Sacramento’s Department of Transportation website here.

10 additional tidbits I learned while hanging out with Officer Hatch:

1) Owning two wheels can save you money on parking: “Piggy-backing” is a completely legal practice: This is when motorcycles park in a stall paid for and parked in by another vehicle. The practice is okay as long as they fit within the white brackets painted on the street.

2) Sometimes owning two wheels can cost you too: Paid-for parking receipts are often stolen from motorcyclists, who are forced to display them out in the open. One local motorcyclist got smart and began autographing his.

3) Owning a Zipcar is good for your wallet: Hatch has only ever cited one Zipcar and, although there are designated single Zipcar spaces, officers won’t ticket Zipcars if they are on the same block as the parking space. This is in case another car illegally parked in the Zipcar space, making it unavailable.

4) Your money goes further on pay and display kiosks: If you pay at a pay stall on one block and still have time remaining, save the receipt! You can use that same receipt while you finish up your errands. The time you paid for isn’t just valid on the one block.

5) Officers aren’t intentionally parking that way to be rude: Many of us like to think officers park in red zones and double-park just because they can. An ordinance allows officers to park in red zones and double-park, mainly for safety. When retrieving VIN numbers, they often have to stand in traffic and parking their car as a buffer is a safety measure.

6) Complain to the business owner, not the officer: Business owners have the ability to change and set restrictions in front of and around their establishment.

7) Old Sac is not just a “hot spot” for tourists: In order to encourage turnover of vehicles in this tourist area, regulations are enforced seven days a week. Hatch told me this area has one of the highest volumes of tickets issued.

8) Evening shifts are where the money’s at: Officers make five percent more for working after 6 p.m.

9) Street cleaning is the parking enforcement jackpot: Hatch said in almost five years, the day that he recalls giving out the most tickets was during a street cleaning beat. He issued 100 tickets within three to four hours.

10) Land Park loves parking enforcement: Hatch told me his favorite area to patrol is Land Park because the residents actually want officers there, even thanking officers on a regular basis.