I live in Sacramento (not too far from where the guy in this article lives, in East Sacramento). A lot of East Sacramento is an older, established neighborhood where most homeowners take pride in their yards and homes (homes range from as cheap as $699k for something less than 1500 sqft up to multiple millions), and depending on what this guys' front yard looked like, it's understandable that some people might complain if he frequently had cars in state of disrepair in his front yard/driveway. over a half a million dollars in fines is ridiculous though. Here are some examples of some of the neighborhoods for context (it's possible he lives in an area of East Sac that isn't as upscale as this, I suppose):