KINKS BEGIN TO APPEAR ON RAMIREZ'S VAUNTED PARKING KIOSKS

(Ed.'s Note: In what is becoming a common occurrence, a motorist trying to pay at one of the parking kiosks downtown – this time one on the east side of Adams Street between 12th and 13th streets – stands staring at the crumpled bill that is rejected by the machine's rollers.

This is happening repeatedly across downtown to other drivers on the in other pay stations, such as the one located in front of the old HEB on Elizabeth Street (below).

A Mexican driver, after failing to get the machine to work after his bills were rejected, went to a nearby business to get some quarters, and by the time he returned, he found the bright yellow parking violation citation on his windshield. And once the machine spits out your dollar, the rollers inside crumple the bill and no other kiosk will take it.

(This one is frozen and won't go past this stage. Good thing that the one across the street took the dollar. A few days ago that one wouldn't take it either.)

Remember that city manager Helen Ramirez and her pliant mayor and the rest of the city commissioners said the new system – which doubled the hourly cost of parking downtown from 50 cents to $1 – would revolutionize the city's parking system and bring us across the digital divide.

With the limit on the kiosks limited to four hours at one time, all that workers at businesses downtown have to do is scurry out of their jobs every four hours and pay for another four. At $8 per day, they save themselves the citation violation $10 fee, also doubled. Try to convince the municipal judge that the machine took your bill and spit it out, if you can.)