As a restaurant owner on Main St. in Buckhannon, I am inundated with questions from patrons, most of whom have recently finished lunch, regarding the reason and rationale for the hefty parking fines for parking on Main St. downtown.  Most inquiries are related to the the purpose the City has for dissuading people to park downtown.  The more insightful ones even go so far as to inquire whether the town has some agreement with Walmart, where parking is free and ample; insinuating that perhaps our city officials promised to direct business their way by fining patrons of the downtown retailers.
     I can assure you that this is probably not the case although a conspiracy theorist might want to look a little closer at the question.
    Parking in Buckhannon is not free, ever.  Except for in the residential areas.  If you plan on being in town for any length of time, then bring some quarters and some $1 bills.  Here's the skinny:
       You can park on Main St., where there are no meters, for two hours.  Not one minute over. But beware!  If you look closely you will notice that there are deer stands on some of the lamp posts.  These are not for the common purpose of spotting local Odocoileus that have wandered into town, but instead are inhabited by the parking police.  They meticulously monitor your vehicle and the exact time that you parked or put your money in the meter; using high definition laser directed binocularscopic imagery (purchased with a grant from Home Land Security to fight terrorism) they pounce within microseconds of your time expiring, either on the meter or on Main St.  Now your vehicle is tagged.
     The little yellow ticket on your windshield is equipped with GPS location devices as well as radio alarm transmitters (RAT).  Should your car remain in its present location for another 58 minutes and 25 seconds, RAT sends a signal into space where it is received by the Transmission Receiver Activating Parking Police Satellite (TRAPPS), which sends a signal to the parking police on the ground, who go directly to your vehicle to put another ticket on your car.
     RAT TRAPPS, as mentioned earlier, was purchased with Home Land Security grants to fight terrorism.  The entire unit costs 59 million dollars and is predicted to recoup that investment within the next 25 years.  This was the primary reason for the increase in parking fines that happened last year.  It is possible to receive up to 6 tickets in one day. Each ticket written within minutes of the allotted expiration time of the previous one.
     Albert Einstein once said "Technology is like a razor blade in the hands of a three year old."  Well, the RAT TRAPPS being used to deter parking on the streets of Buckhannon are no different.. 
     It is clear that the majority of businesses on Main St. are service related.  This means that most of the people who are parking downtown are not here to purchase wares and products but to receive some form of service, whether it be a hair cut, a dental exam, a consultation with an attorney, or even a massage. The difference between retail sales and service oriented businesses is that service oriented businesses take a lot longer for the transaction to occur. 
     RAT TRAPPS does not take into account this phenomenon.  It assumes that everyone who over parks downtown are just retail shoppers who are loitering and not really shopping, as if having made their purchase, they have now gone into a catatonic trance and are wandering up and down the streets with their purchase tucked under their arm and their pocket books locked tight.  When in fact it might be a nice little old lady who just got new teeth and is trying to use them at one of the local restaurants; an agenda that will far exceed the allotted two hours.
     There was a time when parking on Main St. was free.  This was pre 9/11.  A time when we could trust each other not to abuse and freeload as much free parking as we wanted.  Those days are gone.  The terror that has gripped the country makes everyone suspect, and a vehicle left unattended at a meter, even for a single minute, might constitute a threat to our town's security.  Or so it would seem. 
     The world, as we know it operates on the premise that there isn't enough of everything to go around.  There isn't enough food, so we can't send it from our store houses to starving people throughout the world, there isn't enough water, so western states battle over water rights to the Colorado river, there isn't enough oil, so oil is an issue of national security, and ther isn't enough parking spaces in Buckhannon, so we have RAT TRAPPS.
     Just think what the world would be like if we learned that there was enough food to go around, and there was enough water, and there were ways to create energy in abundance safely for everyone who needed it.  And what if there was enough parking in Buckhannon for everyone and it just needed to be brought to everyones attention.  what if there were signs directing people who wanted to park in Buckhannon for more than two hours to the big empty parking lots one block to the north and south of Main St.  Of course all these things would require some sacrifice from everyone.  A person might have to walk a block or two to get where they want to be but then maybe we could get rid of the RAT TRAPPS.  After all, what would their purpose be, if parking was in ample supply.
     My fear is that if things continue as they do, then there will be plenty of parking on Main St. because it is only a matter of time until people become too tired of paying $25 and $50 fines for using services located here and go elsewhere. There's still lots of room next to Walmart for them to relocate to.  And its always free there.