Anchorage, Alaska Assemblyman Dan Coffey is proposing a ballot measure asking Anchorage voters to rescind the ban on meter maids adopted in 1997. Fed up with overzealous ticketing -- including a short-lived experiment with speed cameras -- the citizens of Anchorage had enacted Proposition 3. The measure closed the doors on the Anchorage Parking Authority and banned the use of photo radar equipment.

The 1997 proposition mandated that only sworn police officers could issue tickets, and as a result parking revenue plunged from $2.1 million in 1996 to $568,000 in the first full year following the ban.

Although the city raised the parking ticket fine from $10 to $20 in 2004, the current level of ticket revenue is still half of what it was in 1996, as the number of tickets issued remains one-quarter of the pre-referendum amount.

It was a period that gave birth to the "Parking Fairies" -- sisters Susan and Linny Pacillo, who donned pink tutus and wings and tooled along downtown streets in a three-wheeled meter-maid rig plugging meters with change donated by customers at their Midtown gas station.