Los Angeles 'Gold Card Desk'

Old media's dying, but some venerable old media institutions are still doing excellent journalism, so CWCD. The Los Angeles Times had the story the other day on the L.A. city government's "Gold Card Desk," where local officials got expedited treatment to make parking violations go away: "'Gold Card Desk' dismissed some L.A. parking tickets without justification, audit finds." And here comes the story on the front-page of this morning's paper: "L.A. Drops its Parking Gold Cards."

A plastic parking bureau Gold Card was apparently distributed to city offices and included a special phone number for a holder who had an "urgent need to resolve any parking citation matter which requires special attention." The card promised that "you will be immediately connected to our Gold Card Specialist."