New Cincinnati parking Plan: Jim Tarbell personally watches your car for $5 an hour

CINCINNATI, OH - Following much debate on outsourcing city parking services, Cincinnati City Council has come to a decision for the city’s future. Former councilman Jim Tarbell has been contracted to watch over downtown parked cars at the low rate of only five dollars per hour.

“Zippity do-dah! Hip-hip hooray!,” exclaimed an exuberant Jim Tarbell. “I sure do love this city and all the people in it! There are bright wonderful days ahead full of sunshine and happiness and clean living. The gods smile upon us and I wake up every morning with a sense of optimism and fair weather and singing birds.” It is unknown if this comment from Tarbell had any relation to the issue of parking, or if it was just a random exclamation.

City leaders said that the decision was an easy one. “We were looking at catching a lot of hell for our other options,” said City Council member Roxanne Qualls. “Increased costs for parking and skyrocketing prices for parking tickets were gonna tick people off and maybe make them not vote for us in the future, so this was a much better choice. Having Cincinnati’s most beloved characters strolling around town watching people’s cars and collecting money is a perfect solution.”

City manager Milton Dohoney agrees with City Council on the idea. “This is a win-win situation for us,” said Dohoney. “Not only does it solve the problem of outsourcing parking, but it will keep Jim busy. We were starting to get complaints from Findlay Market that he was aimlessly walking around spilling soup on people.”

“I’m taking this job very seriously,” said Tarbell, while dressed in a top hat, tails and holding a bobble-head replica of himself. “I’m gonna watch those cars real good and maybe I’ll even wash them if the people are nice and give me a couple of extra bucks. I’m glad they chose me for this job, I’m even more glad that ShadowHare was not available.”