I parked in a bus zone outside my office for 2 minutes one Friday
night and upon returning, there was an officer issuing a citation for
$250 who would not stop issuing it despite my return. Last year in CA
statewide, certain parking fines went up over 400%. The state & cities
need revenue, but raising tickets from $40 to $250 in one year seems
outrageous. I paid the fine, but am looking for legal grounds on which
to challenge such a massive hike. It's a stealth tax; do the funds
have to go to pay for certain things; these are ideas for research and
arguments, but any further help with ideas and argument would be much appreciated.

Tax?  You parked where you knew you shouldn't.  It's a punishment.  If
fines are too low, they won't serve as a deterrent.

Cities are limited from raising revenue through taxes, that is,
limited in how much they can raise taxes to make revenue, so they are
using things like parking fines to raise revenue statewide. There is
no option of jail time or community service for this kind of
violation, and those things would certainly also serve as a deterrent.
The violation itself is not potentially threatening to life or
property, and does not merit such a high fine. I'm seeking legal bases
on which to lower the fine to a reasonable amount, and/or allow for a
community service option for part of it, something more akin to
instilling civic pride rather than fear of punishment. Thanks for your
comment.

Although your situation is unfortunate, it does not even remotely
resemble one upon which you could seek legal relief. Your appeal to
fairness will not move the court in the slightest; nor should it. I
understand that you are upset about the ticket, and you have every
right to be appalled at the fine, but you will be nothing more than a
number to whatever traffic court judge you appear before.

As a side note, traffic court judges generally do not put up with a
lot of garbage in their courtroom and are not impressed with an appeal
to what you deem to be fair and equitable. As you can imagine, this
judge probably hears the exact same thing from every other person who
appears before them; these people are the complaint department of the
judicial system.

Since this is a parking ticket, and you clearly violated whatever law
this is tied to (by your own admission), I would highly recommend that
you NOT make a policy argument to a traffic court judge. My advice
would be to be immeasurably humble when contesting this ticket, and
respectfully request that the judge grant you one of your alternative
punishments. Although I am not familiar with this specific
jurisdiction, or really this state, I am quite certain that your
request will be met with immediate rejection. This, however, is more
than likely your best chance of success. Someone who is more famliar
with this jurisdiction/area could perhaps have a better answer.

Are you an attorney? What is the basis for your comment? I have been
told that people usually go to the hearings to beg for a lighter fine
that is NEVER granted. I'd like to go and make argument that could
change that in the future, if not in my own case. When I called to
request a hearing, I specifically asked if this was the proper forum
to address the issue the way I wanted to address it. For one thing,
there's a state code that says how much this fine is set at, but
cities do have leeway to set their own fines. This is not a traffic
violation. Also, as I posted earlier, there are no other options but
paying. I was quite impressed with one Google researcher who posted
much information regarding parking fines across the country in
response to another query. I welcome a high quality answer to this
question.