Can the H.O.A. make rules for public neighborhood streets?

[Brad]

Hi, I started dating a girl who lives in a neighborhood with an H.O.A. that not only wants to tell you what to do with your yard, now is telling people you can't park curbside on a city street. So...as we all know you can park curbside just about anywhere unless marked other wise (no parking signs, red curbs for fire lanes, not close to corners, or blocking mailboxes, fire plugs, etc). I park my car very close to the curb facing the right direction, clear of mailboxes, plus my car is well taken care of with current tags and state inspection. Her car is garaged but her daughter parks in the driveway, so I have no place else to park, I guess I could park right in the middle of the lawn that would make their fricken wanna be heads explode. I have a feeling a fine is coming as we have received two hate letters from these a**holes. What I need to know is if I have a leg to stand on when this fine comes? Seems to me the streets belong to the City. If the H.O.A. seems to think they own them, if I get pulled over by a cop I can tell him he can't give me a ticket because the all power-full HOA runs these streets...right? Seems to me when parking is an issue the city will put up no parking signs, or paint the curbs red, and tow vehicles. The streets here are nice and wide so traffic is not effected in any way. So what do you guys think? Should I go in guns blazing, or are they really the GODS of this neighborhood? We have to pay these low lives $800 bucks a year in dues...and what do we get for it? I'll tell you...wasting my time writing letters like this is all they've done for me!!