Wilmington council email: What can 'be done' about president's parking ticket?

When Wilmington City Council President Hanifa Shabazz got a parking ticket on Market Street in May, it took less than 48 hours for her chief of staff to send an email to the parking enforcement office. 

"Is there anything that can be done regarding the above?" Chief of Staff Marchelle Basnight asked in a message with the ticket number in the subject line. 

Debra Wooden, the parking services supervisor, wrote back that she would have to ask Finance Director Patrick Carter. Council members are permitted to park for free only in designated spots outside the Louis L. Redding City/County Building on French Street, Wooden wrote. Not on Market Street. 

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Shabazz paid the $40 ticket on June 11, the mayor's office said. But the emails, obtained by The News Journal via a Freedom of Information Act request, raise questions about whether the president was seeking "special favors," said Councilman Bob Williams.

"If you’re going to ask, then you need to be explicitly in the right," said Williams, who represents District 7. "Anything outside of that, I think, is a form of abuse of power." 

Shabazz and Basnight said the email exchange is not what it appears. 

"I understand how it might look, but that’s not what happened," Shabazz said. "We don't fix tickets." 

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Basnight said she was "handling a batch of parking tickets that were in dispute" involving Shabazz's designated parking spot outside the city building.

The parking ticket from Market Street, issued for "meter overtime," had gotten mixed in with others, according to Basnight. The chief of staff said she didn't know the ticket was not related to Shabazz's council spot until Wooden pointed it out. 

"I didn’t even realize it," Basnight said. "If I did, it wouldn’t have been sent to finance."

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Why the president gave the Market Street parking ticket to her chief of staff within a day of receiving it, Shabazz did not clearly explain. 

"I got several tickets and some of them were in dispute," she said. "I thought this might’ve been part of that."

She added: "It was a valid ticket and when we found it was a valid ticket, it was paid."

Ken Grant, manager of public and government affairs for AAA Mid-Atlantic, said the situation could "raise some eyebrows."

"The average person getting a ticket doesn’t give it to a chief of staff to see what she can do," he said. "An average person has to file an appeal. If she felt there was something there, it should’ve been a matter of filing an appeal."

But the fact that Shabazz paid the ticket is good, Grant said. 

"If there were a continuous push, it might be worth exploring more." 

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Contact reporter Christina Jedra at (302) 324-2837 or cjedra@delawareonline.com.