Civic Center of Des Plaines

This is a review of the Civic Center at the address listed here, not for the actual entire city of Des Plaines. That should be obvious, but I just wanted to make it clear!
I’ve had mixed results here. When I have to come in to ask a question or pay some fee or another, the line always moves quickly, and the staff is always friendly. When I have questions about where to find the date on the receipt for my city sticker or what the zoning rules are if I want to put a new mailbox up, my questions are always answered properly. I haven’t had to come here for anything big or major, like a renovation permit, but I did come here to ask if I needed one for a small issue with my basement and had the circumstances around when one is or is not required explained to my satisfaction. The people on the administrative side know their stuff and don’t talk to you like a moron if you don’t know it yourself.
Across the way, on the other side of the civic center, you will find the police. I cannot say that they are as with it as the other city employees I’ve dealt with, in my experience. I was recently issued a parking ticket that was not filled out all the way and had «display of expired sticker» written as the reason it was issued. (I did have an expired sticker displayed in addition to my current one.) When I went down to the police side of the civic center, however, I was told it was because I did not have a valid sticker at all. Well, I do have one, and I provided a copy of the receipt. The woman I was speaking with got a bit testy and said she’d send the paperwork to the proper department, but could not or would not explain to me why I was being told two different reasons for my ticket. Then, in the mail, I received a piece of paper informing me that my ticket was ACTUALLY for a third, different thing – improper display of my current sticker. I needed to provide a photograph of my sticker on my car, displayed correctly. It did not say whether I should mail it, email it, or what, so I just brought the photo in myself. Again, the person I saw on the police side couldn’t or wouldn’t tell me why there was a discrepancy when I brought in the photo. She also couldn’t tell me what would happen next, only saying, «We’ll contact you.»
It has been almost three weeks now since I presented the photo, and I still have not heard from them. I called to try to talk to somebody, but I was told I would be contacted through the mail. Here I am, still waiting, hoping that if I do have to pay a fine, the notification didn’t get lost in the mail, leaving me to get pulled over randomly some time because my license plate shows up on a list with the state police.
I’ve certainly experienced worse service from city or village administration and police departments and realize that this is not that bad of an experience. In fact, I was once waiting for a form at Wood Dale PD for an entire afternoon. Still, I would really like to see the service on the PD side rise to the level of the other Civic Center staff. Also, it is annoying as hell to be parking your car in front of this place to pay for what appears to be a BS ticket, only to see numerous police walking past a vehicle parked in a totally illegal fashion right in front of their station and not writing a single ticket. I seriously thought my head might explode when I saw that. Of course, it would probably be one of the super nice ladies from the administrative side who ended up on brain detail if it actually happened.