Linda Heath
Linda Heath
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Laramie County Commissioner Linda Heath recently paid a pair of parking tickets with change, and Cheyenne Mayor Marian Orr was not especially happy about that.

Heath said she received a pair of parking tickets in March totaling 60 dollars. The commissioner then took rolled up coins from her bank and used the currency to pay the ticket.

The commissioner said the payment was her way of protesting downtown parking enforcement policies that she disagrees with, including a lack of parking for people with disabilities, two-hour parking limits that she feels are overly restrictive, and several other parking-related issues. Heath said in some cases she would favor the use of parking meters over two-hour limits. She also said she thinks some one-way streets, not including Warren and Central, should be made two way

Heath said the mayor responded to her protest by leaving her a voicemail ''threatening to take away all of the parking spaces in the Cox garage if I continued to make light of the parking enforcement." Heath said she laughed at that comment, because, she says, the city and county have a 99-year agreement that allows the county to use the garage.

Mayor Orr told Townsquare Media of Cheyenne on Wednesday morning that she felt Heath's protest was inappropriate, and that if the commissioner had a problem with parking policy she should have spoken to her personally and discussed the issue. She said the issue wasn't with city staff and that Heath should not have put staffers in that position.

Orr said Heath instead was ''disrespectful to a city employee'' by putting the employee in the position of having to count the change and make sure it was correct.

The mayor also defended the new parking policy, saying it has increased traffic and parking availability in downtown Cheyenne. Orr also said that while ''no one likes parking tickets, no one is above the law, including elected officials."

The two also dispute the makeup of the currency. Heath said it was composed of various coins, the mayor said she understood that it was all pennies.

Heath, who is a Republican, is running for re-election to the commision this year. You can hear some of the comments from the mayor and the commissioner below.

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