Boot Blitz

Shortshanks needs money, damnit.

• Scrounging for cash to erase a threatened $300 million year-end shortfall, Chicago is going after motorists with two unpaid tickets older than one year with a vengeance -- by mailing 183,293 seizure notices and booting 3,493 vehicles.

  The City Council's controversial decision to drop the threshold for applying the Denver boot for the first time in seven years -- from three-unpaid tickets to two -- has touched off a booting blitz.

And the amusing part?

• Through June 30, the city had issued 1.38 million tickets, roughly 18,000 fewer than it did during the same period last year.

  Parking enforcement aides were apparently unable to pick up the slack from Chicago Police officers, whose ticket-writing dropped by nearly 10 percent last year.

Ticket writing takes a back seat to radio backlogs, which are on pace to surpass last year's record. We can't do the mission with the numbers we have it shows, not just in the ticket fall off, but in the aggravated battery increases.