In Boise, all your parking sins forgiven (offer not available in Twin Falls)

In my hometown of Boise, in place of the old-fashioned giving to the poor and needy at Christmas time, some local pastors have decided to pay off miscreants' parking tickets. Some see it as a teaching moment and a chance for evangelization. This did not sit well with some Idahoans.

We here in the Double Drip are made of sterner stuff. Thanks to the miracle of new legislation and a public-private partnership with collection agencies, no excuse if you've already paid your tickets, even a decade ago - we will hound you until you pay again:

She was just 13 years old when she was arrested for smoking a cigarette... Her sentence was a $51.50 fine, six months' probation and a round of smoking cessation classes. Now, 10 years later, the county is telling Jenette Worthington she never paid that $51.50 fine and, if she doesn't pay up now, a warrant will be issued for her arrest and the bill will be turned over to a collection agency.

Worthington's bill is the result of a new initiative to collect fines that were supposedly never paid. In some cases, the letters come with the threat of an arrest warrant for citations that are more than 10 years old... But each person who has received the notices and spoken with The Times-News has something interesting in common: they distinctly remember paying the fine.

Even the IRS says you only need to hold on to records for seven years. So why does Twin Falls County assume people would keep receipts from more than a decade ago?... Public defenders only keep records for 10 years...How can they expect us to?"

(Link here - story will be in free archive for the next 7 days.)

In this blessed season, from all of us in Twin Falls, a very heart-felt "Bah, Humbug!"