Note: This article was published in the Beacon Hill Paper, March 6, 1996.

Name something perfectly efficient.

Perpetual motion machines, were they ever to work, would be an example. Here in the real world, it used to be (but no longer is) IBM. Closer to home, it's the Boston Department of Transportation's parking enforcement division.

Meter maids--actually they're not all women, some are married, and they are properly called parking enforcement officers--roam Boston's streets every day but Sunday, tagging illegally parked cars. Double park outside of DeLucas, buy a gallon of milk and the newspaper and you almost certainly will return to see a bright orange marker gracing your windshield. Arrive to move your car at 8:10 a.m. on street cleaning day, and you'll have the same result.

Indeed it would be wonderful if all of city government worked as well. The parking enforcement division's success speaks to the competence of the department's management in developing an enforcement process that is comprehensive, swift, effective, and even-handed--and one that raises $45 million annually for the city's coffers. Parking enforcement officers are rotated regularly so that they don't start to show favoritism. The rules they enforce do not brook exceptions and they are required to tag all offenders, ignoring any pleas to the contrary.

In general this is all to the common good. But at times the rules, and the parking enforcement officers' rigid enforcement of the rules, becomes nonsensical. One obvious example is when residents briefly double park in front of their homes to unload packages. You come home from the grocery store. No parking spaces are available in front of your house so you double park, unload your packages, then go and park down the street. The problem is that double parking is illegal and parking enforcement officers are omnipresent. Residents need a break on this.

I intend to introduce legislation in the City Council to change the rules and permit double parking under limited circumstances: you would be permitted to double park if (1) you have a residential sticker, (2) you are actively loading or unloading in a residential area for no more than five minutes, (3) your blinkers are flashing and (4) you do not load or unload during rush hour. It's a simple change really But enforcement of the double parking rules in these kinds of cases is one of the things that aggravates residents and sours them on the city As a government, we should take whatever reasonable steps we can to make living here easier and more pleasant.

I would welcome your thoughts on this article as well as other issues of concern to the city. Residents who are so equipped are welcome to visit my world wide web site at http://www.tomkeane.com or to e-mail me at tomkeane@tomkeane.com