WHAT THE HELL, PEOPLE?!

So, I called the person in the Somerville parking office whom the nice lawyer mans said to contact. The person, named Stephen ("with a 'p-h'"), told me that all I would need to do is send in the fee along with a letter written on my letterhead with a copy of my professional license and car registration, stating what type of health care I'm providing. He said they don't take information about where in Somerville I want the permit to be valid, stating that "we won't limit it, so that it will be valid if you want to pick up more clients in Somerville." He also said that "we usually make it valid Monday-Friday 9-5, but we can do 12-10 or whatever too since you see people in the evening."

What. The. Hell.?

So, either:

1) They've just now changed the policy because of my bringing it to their attention, which would be awesome, except that I'd hope that a city government could act like adults and acknowledge this. Or,

2) It never was a policy that people need to violate confidentiality in order to practice health care in Somerville, and the person I spoke to in parking was an ignorant jackass, who was then backed up by several other sheep whose policy is to "enforce" the word of any other department without actually doing any thinking, including at least one person who holds a professional license as a health care provider and should know better.

Either way, it looks like I'm well on my way to having said parking permit. It only took me six months. Really, for all the time and energy I spent on this, I could have bought my own damn parking spot had I a desire to park in a random residential neighborhood in Somerville for nefarious purposes. Because there's clearly a high risk of that sort of thing. What.