Fake Parking Pass Costs City Planner $6,500 and Her Job A former urban planner for the city was fined $6,500 by New York City's Conflicts of Interest Board for creating a fake parking placard, which she used to park in prohibited spaces, and to bail herself out of several parking tickets. The planner, Khalilah Stewart, who was with the Department of City Planning from September 2006 until August 2011, designed, printed and laminated the fake placard in 2007, then displayed it on the dashboard of her silver Ford sedan until 2011, she stated in an agreement (see below) with the conflicts board. Two weeks ago, the conflicts board announced the disposition of a similar case, in which a schoolteacher in Brooklyn was fined $1,000 for photocopying a school parking placard in order to park closer to the school. Ms. Stewart, according to the board, used her bogus pass not only to park at will along the city's streets, but also presented it in her successful appeals of three parking tickets between April 2008 and October 2009. The Conflicts of Interest Board's report and the final disposition between Ms. Stewart and the city did not provide details about the violations she appealed, but according to the city's Web site, parking fines can range from $35 to $200, depending on the nature and location of the violation. A team of investigators from the Department of Transportation spotted Ms. Stewart's placard while her car was parked on Staten Island, city officials said. They did not say when it was discovered. Last August, she resigned from her job instead of being fired after the City Planning Department became aware of the investigation, a department spokeswoman said. City Official Caught With Fake Parking Placard (PDF) City Official Caught With Fake Parking Placard (Text)