Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Internal Audit Catches Illegal Use of Parking Transponders

NJ.com's Hoboken Now did a story to arrest of two people using a stolen transponders yesterday. Here is the story:

Municipal garage employee arrested in connection with stolen transponder



Here is the corresponding press release from the Zimmer Administration yesterday:

INTERNAL AUDIT ASSISTS IN CATCHING ILLEGAL USE OF PARKING TRANSPONDERS

In October 2009, Mayor Zimmer directed Transportation and Parking Director Ian Sacs to conduct an audit of all active Municipal Parking Garage transponders.

After completing the audit in January 2010, Director Sacs identified about 160 active devices that were not associated with a City vehicle and had them disabled. The arrests announced today are a result of the Mayor’s efforts to restore integrity in government and the cooperation between the City’s directors and the Hoboken Police.

My Commnents:

There were 160 missing units. Here are my questions:
  • Why were none of these reported or turned off until after the audit?
  • Isn't this one arrest just the tip of the iceberg?
  • Doesn't the sheer number of missing transponders indicate systemic fraud?
  • Is there a trade in stolen trsanponsers?
  • Are more arrests coming?
  • When this is said and done, will this be known as "Transponder Gate"?

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