SFist posted last week about the lovely Huntington Park on Nob Hill, and commenter hthoms responded with an account of some pushy park rangers "abusing their power" by harassing park-goers with off-leash dogs, citing this SF Weekly article:

Unfortunately, this idyllic setting has recently witnessed an aggressive crackdown on dogs and their owners for leash violations by Sf Rec&Park Rangers. As many as 3 Park Rangers at a time are used to write a single ticket. One woman was even chased out of the park and down the street, where the Park Ranger attempted to force his way into her home as she fought to close her door.

Some members of the Nob Hill Association say that someone influential in the Association and SF government has sicced the Rangers on the unfortunate dog owners.

One Park Ranger told a park visitor: "Someone high up, who is our advocate in city government, told us to go here and cite people or risk losing our jobs."

Here is a thread of several more such comments.

Has anyone else out there encountered confrontations with park rangers? Honestly, we can't blame them for doing their jobs, considering having dogs off-leash is illegal in many parks.

Union City--just south north [our xenophobia is showing!] of Fremont, near Newark and Hayward--was recently caught re-timing their traffic signals so that the yellow light is shorter than the legal limit. Why? Well, this makes it easier for motorists to run a red light, then get caught by the red-light cameras, which in turn gets the city more money from increased traffic tickets.

Of course, shorter yellow lights also makes an intersection more dangerous for both pedestrians and drivers.

According to Left Lane (via Motorists.org), five other cities were also found guilty of doing the same thing: Dallas and Lubbock, TX, Nashville and Chattanooga, TN, Springfield, MO. One of those cities, it seems, had to "issue refunds by more than $1 million to motorists who were issued tickets for running red lights."

Apparently these are "just instances that have been identified" in yellow-light trickery. More may be more out there.