Good Morning Kathleen,
Thank you for voicing your concern. If you were parked on the Caltrain parking lot, that ticket was not issued by Menlo Park Police Department. You would need to contact San Mateo County Sheriffs office in regards to your parking ticket.
Regards,
Jocelyn Gonzalez
[cid:CMP_Email_Logo_100dpi_05d92d5b-e8e3-498f-93a6-d0da509bd602111111111.png]
Jocelyn Gonzalez
Police Records Specialist
Police Department
701 Laurel St.
tel 650-330-6300
menlopark.gov
*Note our emails have changed to @menlopark.gov
From: kathleen@listons.net [mailto:kathleen@listons.net]
Sent: Saturday, February 25, 2023 1:51 PM
To: _CCIN
; ParkingPermits
Subject: Parking Enforcement Saturday AM with empty lot
This morning I received a $48 parking ticket at 8:00 AM at the train station lot near Philz Coffee. The lot was completely empty except for a 5 or 6 cars (including 1 from a friend) and the street parking was full. As you can see in the photos (I took after staying for another hour to enjoy the coffee)- there are tons of parking spaces and absolutely no reason to enforce this except purely as a revenue grab and recouping cost of the parking enforcement vehicle and personnel.
20 plus years in Menlo Park and cant believe a nice Saturday morning - swim at Burgess and coffee at Philz cost me $48.
Many other lots have grace periods and honestly never even thought I couldnt park there. For the past 2 years I stop by weekend mornigns after a swim at Burgess to enjoy a coffee at Philz and talk with friends, typically leaving by 8:30. One of our friends literally had just parked when I saw the enforcement officer. Its no wonder Menlo Park has a problem with filling retail space if theyd rather spend money on enforcement than encouraging customers to visit local shops.
I truly hope someone revisits this parking policy. I understand if this was a high-demand hour or lot but it is not.
-Kathleen