SHERMAN OAKS : Traffic Officer Has Heard It All on Valley Beat

Running back from a fast-food stand, a hamburger in one hand and a cellular phone in the other, he runs toward where his car is being ticketed.

“I just went to get change, but you don’t care do you?” the unidentified man shouts at traffic Officer Silka Iglesias, then he gets in his white sports car, flings the ticket out the window and speeds off.

To many people, being the regular target of such anger would probably be unnerving. But as a traffic officer for the Valley’s Parking Enforcement Bureau, being one of that select group of women and men who proudly call themselves “the most despised people along Ventura Boulevard,” it is just another day on the job.

Iglesias, a traffic officer for the past five years, has heard it all.

The “no change routine” falls on deaf ears; it’s the most common excuse people give for parking at an expired meter.

“My challenge is ‘give me a story I haven’t heard,’ ” the 38-year-old Iglesias said with a laugh.

Fulfilling the suspicions of everyone everywhere who ever got a parking ticket, Iglesias indeed has a daily productivity quota; she must write at least 48 tickets a day. She wrote her first $20 ticket for overtime metered parking 15 minutes after leaving her office in Van Nuys. “They like to see when you started your day,” she said.

Two more were written as she made her way to her beat, which is Ventura Boulevard between Kester Street and Van Nuys Boulevard. Normally, she writes about 80 tickets a day, she said, which ranks her among the most prolific ticket writers in the city.

Alan Frey, who stopped on the boulevard for lunch, was about to walk away from his parked car when he noticed Iglesias driving by.

“I forgot to put money in and then I saw her,” said Frey, 43, of Woodland Hills, explaining why he ran back to his car.

As her day goes on, tempers flare.

“Motorcycle guys protest a lot because they feel like they don’t take up a whole space,” Iglesias said, as she wrote a ticket for a red motorcycle. “But if they are in violation they are going to get a ticket.”

As she stuck the ticket on the seat of the bike, the owner ran up. “I just stepped off the stupid bike,” said Herman Buitrago, 38, of Sylmar. “I’ll see you in court.”

She waves and smiles as he mutters some expletives and heads off to her next ticket.

Throughout the day, the ticket-avoidance game continues. Some expired meter parkers will dart across busy streets to feed another quarter in the meter, Iglesias said, while others wait in their cars in a red zone until she leaves.

After writing a $330 ticket for a black Volvo for parking in a handicapped parking spot at La Reina shopping center in Sherman Oaks, two women approach her.

“Hey, I needed to park there!” Kali Morgan, 26, of Valley Village yells at Iglesias. “There were no more parking spaces when we came here!”

Her friend, Crystal James, 33, who owns the Volvo, adds, “And how many handicapped people do you find going up to Moby Disc?”

Iglesias listens to their excuses and points to a metered parking lot across the street.

“I have a hit-and-run theory,” she explains. “In order to not get yelled at, I like to give my ticket and go.”

As she enters the metered parking lot behind Tower Records, three men dash in different directions, running toward their cars, glancing back at her to see if they will make it.

“It is like a game,” Iglesias said. “There is a 50-50 chance that you will get caught. And even if we don’t get you the first time, we will catch you sooner or later. All we have is time.”