Thursday, September 16, 2010

apparently you CAN fight city hall

Tel Aviv residents are allowed a resident parking sticker, making street parking free in your zone, and about 10% of the price in other city zones.  Dan got his back in early July.  But when we requested mine, they rejected it because each car needed to be linked to a separate employee and paycheck. Most professionals in Israel are given a company car by their employer, and pay a small amount out of their monthly paycheck. This is what the city uses to validate their application and issue the sticker.  But both of our cars are under Ford Motor Company, under Dan.  The city said a resident/employee is only allowed one sticker (assumption being that without employment, you'd never have a car I guess, and a single employee would certainly never have two cars!).  However, we both pay city taxes, so we were prepared to fight.

After a month and a half of waiting in city hall lines, phone calls that no one answers, an appeal to the Tel Aviv municipal authority, a rejection, ratcheting our complaint up the food chain, and general all around noise-making - success! 

They delivered my Tel Aviv resident parking stickers yesterday morning at 8am, by messenger!

2 comments:

  1. Haha. First rule of living in Israel. Never take no for an answer from government authorities. Second rule. Everything is a fight. Third rule. Don't give up. Fourth rule. It's a game, don't lose your cool.
    Seems like you have mastered this very quickly. It took me about 2 years.
    elaine

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  2. So no house wives/husbands in Isreal with cars? What about retired people?

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