I don't think you've lived somewhere that has failing city services. One of the last places I rented for a while, the city was the only trash service. Optimistically my trash would get collected 3 times a month at best. Sometimes I was lucky to get trash picked up 2 times a month. We frequently had a "queue" of trash bags that had to be loaded after each trash day. I remember moving out and leaving a backlog of trash in the garage, simply because I had no way to dispose of it all.

In the same place, the government mandated regulated power simply decided that they were not going to read my meter because of a "dog behind the gate" (there was no gate). Their solution was to have me pay an "estimated" charge that was several times my monthly income.

It's absolutely unlivable long term to be some place like that.

It's a perverse incentive providing poorer service enables more fines. Of course the cost benefit of this approach is rarely considered by the government involved.

It's separate parts of the city, at least where I was talking about. The police issue the citation and collect the revenue, not the garbage collection part of the city.

Fundamentally it's just the same thing as any other city service: they have no actual obligation to provide any service. Your recourse is to move to another jurisdiction, which I did.