Palatine Man Sues Village for Parking Ticket

The suburb of Palatine is facing a potential class action lawsuit for violating the Driver Privacy Protection Act (DPPA), which was passed in 1993 to protect motorists from having their personal information disclosed to the public. Although Jason Senne does not deny that his Acura was parked illegally in Palatine, he was shocked to see that his personal information, including his name, address, date of birth, driver’s license number, sex, height and weight, were left on the citation on his car for more than five hours – available to any passerby who wanted to take a look. According to the suit, by making Senne’s personal info available in that manner, “Palatine is not only failing to prevent the commission of a crime, it is facilitating the potential crime by making the persona info of the vehicle’s registered owner available to anyone who would desire that information. The suit is seeking class-action status, which could potentially include anyone who’s received a parking ticket in the suburb over the last four years as a plaintiff.

Cook County Tries to Bully Suburbs

The battle over red-light cameras in Cook County has taken a new turn. After the Cook County Board of Commissioners were pressured into granting suburbs the right to ‘opt-out’ of a planned red-light camera program, they are now trying to strong-arm those (nearly all) suburbs which took that option, and opted-out. Todd Stroger, the board’s president has apparently “obtained a legal opinion from the Cook County state’s attorney’s office saying towns that reject the county-operated red-light cameras are claiming jurisdiction over the intersections in question and now become liable for maintenance, including repaving, traffic lights, snow-plowing, signage and cleanup.” The message from Stroger: if you opt-out of the red-light camera program, you are on your own with everything else.