New Haven Independent

Who Tickets The Ticketers?

by Paul Bass | June 4, 2008 1:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (17)

Maureen Bishop parked illegally in front of the Hall of Records. She said she can — because her car has emergency lights.

Those lights weren’t on when Bishop parked in front of the 200 Orange St. Hall of Records city government offices Tuesday afternoon, clogging traffic. She didn’t have an emergency. She was doing paperwork and chatting on her cellphone.

You might think it audacious, or risky, to park in front of 200 Orange. After all, the city’s traffic enforcement office is headquartered right in that building. It’s the likeliest spot in town to find ticket-issuers milling around. And the money-strapped city government has been aggressive in giving out tickets, especially in hot abuse spots like the narrow stretch of road in front of 200 Orange between Elm and Court streets.

But Bishop drives a city car. She works for the traffic office. And city government has an unofficial policy, according to the traffic chief, of not ticketing city vehicles in that spot.

(Check out photos at the bottom of this story of some of the unticketed city vehicles parked on the block this week.)

“I Just Pulled Over To Do Something”

The double standard — one for members of the public doing business at 200 Orange, one for city workers — was on display Tuesday afternoon. (Click on the play arrow to the video at the top of this story to watch highlights.)

As usual city vehicles were parked, and empty, as workers rushed in to do errands.

But Bishop (pictured), traffic & parking badge number 717, was inside her city-issued Lee Partyka Chevrolet by the building’s steps, scribbling on a pad, then chatting on a cell phone.

She informed a questioner that no one’s allowed to park there — “unless you’re an emergency vehicle with light bars on it, like mine.”

It was noted that the lights above her car were off.

“They don’t need to be” on, she said.

And why did she need to park illegally?

“I just pulled over to do something,” she said. “…Emergency vehicles are city vehicles!”

When asked what “emergency” she had cooking, she referred questions to city traffic chief Mike Piscitelli.

Piscitelli was on a work trip to Texas Wednesday. But a ticket-issuer happened to be standing nearby, outside the building’s basement-level entrance. It was Joe Amarone, badge 719.

Amarone (pictured) was alerted to the illegal parker right up the block. He said he was too busy to issue a ticket.

“We’re all being trained right now,” he said. “Talk to my boss.”

Back on the street, Bishop had departed. A Chevy Cavalier was already occupying the illegal space. The car was empty; it had a resident sticker for the Bella Vista elderly housing complex.

And wouldn’t you know it? A ticket was already on the windshield.

And another ticket-issuer was standing nearby. David White, badge 711.

White (pictured) was upset — that a reporter was touching the ticket on the windshield to see how much the fine was. White put a quick stop to that.

“You’re touching somebody’s personal vehicle. It’s not good,” he warned.

Asked why the Cavalier received an immediate ticket, but the city vehicle parked there beforehand hadn’t, White kept returning to the warning not to touch the ticket.

“That wouldn’t be good,” he warned. “What you’re doing.”

Informal Policy

The whole short-term parking situation on that block of Orange is not good, traffic chief Piscitelli said when he returned to the office Wednesday.

People have to rush into 200 Orange for all sorts of government business. But sometimes there are no street spaces available for blocks around.

In particular, he said, employees of his department may need to refill their stash of parking tickets or pick up work orders. City employees need to pick up pay stubs. Finance department employees need to drop off cash at accounts payable.

For now his department has an “informal policy” of allowing people to “get in and get out” quickly when they have to conduct that kind of business, he said.

That policy does not extend to members of the public.

Piscitelli said he is looking at long-term solutions to the parking crunch outside spots like 200 Orange St. and the police station, where a similar informal policy is currently in effect for cop cruisers.

(Click here, here, here to read about Piscitelli’s efforts to address other transportation challenges in town.)

Piscitelli did dispute Maureen Bishop’s version of the informal policy, emergency lights or no emergency lights. Even city employees do not have an “unfettered right” to sit in their cars in illegal spots, he said.

“They should get in and get out of there,” he said.

Some of the vehicles, like this one, come under the aegis not of the traffic department, but of line departments directly reporting to the city’s chief administrative officer, Rob Smuts.

“Not specific to that area, but we do have a policy that all drivers must obey posted parking rules,” Smuts reported Wednesday.

“Incidentally,” he added,”the GSA [federal General Services Administration] is out to bid right now to create several parking spots in front of 200 Orange, to compensate us for the ones they are removing in front of the Giaimo building.

“Construction should start soon.”

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Comments

Posted by: Dave H. | June 4, 2008 1:16 PM

Why do we insist on being socialist about parking spaces (government builds and then rents them out far below market rate, and, worse, unofficially 'for free' to its own employees)? Why not charge market rates for parking spaces and then let the market make sure they are allocated efficiently (to the people who really need them, not just the people who are "doing paperwork and chatting on her cellphone")? This would encourage other private businesses to get more involved in the provision of parking spaces - businesses who are effectively kept out of the market by massive government subsidies to parkers? The way it's done now isn't the American way.

Posted by: JP | June 4, 2008 2:07 PM

Paul I drive home past 200 orange everyday and everyday there are cars parked on the wrong side of the street. usually 5 or 6 of them check it out at 5:15 sometime. Seems to me no one ever gets a ticket for parking there and ive always wondered why. Also almost every day someone is stoped in the right hand lane at the atm around the corner. I dont know why its allowed.

Posted by: Kyle | June 4, 2008 2:16 PM

And police cars are not required to stop at red lights.

Posted by: Edward_H | June 4, 2008 2:20 PM

I hope he is also looking to get the cops to stop using Union station as a storage facility as well. Those spaces could be used by paying customers

Posted by: joey | June 4, 2008 3:15 PM

STripe the road and paint city vehicles only so the one sided reporters can go some where else.

Posted by: Jonathan Boulware | June 4, 2008 3:25 PM

My favorite part of that video (which by the way made me anxious watching it in the same way that videos by Sacha Baron Cohen and Michael Moore do) was when badge 719 said, "Oh, Paul Bass... looking to start some trouble..." Nice going, Paul. I'm pleased that you get that reaction. Must mean you're doing something right.

Jonathan

Posted by: cwhig | June 4, 2008 4:36 PM

Dave H., I think your brand of runaway privatization has finally jumped the shark, thank God. The streets belong to the public, and the representative of the public is the government. You can't seriously claim that it's the "American way" to auction off our streets to the highest bidder!

Posted by: Bobbie Knockers | June 4, 2008 4:45 PM

C'mon, let the employees of this city government take what's rightfully theirs: just about everything they can!

Posted by: david streever | June 4, 2008 6:41 PM

Jtn is right on the money :)!

Bass, head down Nicoll street after 5..... same cop parks there every day in a spot marked no parking.... I think he should get towed!

Posted by: bugupit | June 4, 2008 7:01 PM

Hey Paul, were your fingers as greezy as 711 when you handled the ticket? So, let's get a clarification from Mike or from Acting Chief Redding, is it a crime to take a ticket from under a windshield wiper, read it, and replace it? The People ought to know... oh, we know "it's not good" but, well, I really don't know what the hell that means. Uh, 711 was the donut good?

Posted by: Dave H. | June 4, 2008 7:35 PM

CWhig, I'm actually far from a privatizing libertarian, though I may have sounded that way in my last post -- My point is not for the streets to be privatized but for the government to charge market-rate prices for parking. As it is, parking is heavily subsidized so as a result there is a failure of supply to meet demand. You can simply can't find an open spot anywhere.

If the City used variable rate meters that charged more when there is higher demand and less when there isn't, it would be easier to find a parking spot and the City could earn a bit more money. (It would also allow for fair competition with the private sector, but I sense that you are generally not a very pro-market person so this argument may not convince you.) If anything - the current system that allows people to occupy public space for long periods of time without compensating the public (city) at the market rate is the kind of privatization that has "jumped the shark."

Anyhow, D.C. is adopting this plan (if I'm not mistaken), and San Francisco has something similar in the works.

Check out these sites for more info:
http://www.livablecity.org/campaigns/c3.html
http://goodspeedupdate.com/2008/2186

Posted by: Kyle | June 5, 2008 7:35 AM

Dave H.'s Goodspeed Update reference has a link to a rather natty little five-minute film explaining the good professor's concept - complete with model cars driving around on a Lego street:
www.streetfilms.org/archives/illustrating-parking-reform-with-dr-shoup

Posted by: Jon D. | June 5, 2008 7:51 AM

Joey, why do you deffend your city personel if they are the law the should follow it not do as they please.. I also think youu might be one of these law_breaking Cops

Posted by: joey | June 5, 2008 8:57 AM

No a cop i am not, I DO NOT KNOW the right people in city hall to land that job. or the fire department for that matter! just saying mark spaces for city vehicles where needed. and go from there.

Posted by: sick of entitlement | June 5, 2008 6:18 PM

Just for the record, Bishop, badge 717, nearly ran me over while I was on my bike. She was turning right on a red light (which was marked "NO RIGHT ON RED", and she had *slowed* down, but not even stopped. I was going through a green light, in broad daylight, on the correct side of the street. When I yelled at her, I got a good look at that face...not gonna forget that mug soon. Does that sense of entitlement when parked illegally in a city car extend to *moving* vehicles as well....you betcha!

Posted by: abg | June 5, 2008 10:33 PM

i got a ticket from bishop where she apparently was too lazy to actually write a ticket and just punched in the numbers on her handheld device, then i got a notice in the mail a month later saying i owed the ticket amount plus the late fee (why it's legal to assume that the initial ticket was received when the city has all these lazy goons for meter maids, god only knows)... so basically her laziness cost me $20... and if you never get the first ticket you can't contest it. it's a brilliant system of highway robbery.

Posted by: Fedupwithliberals | June 5, 2008 10:42 PM

Would suggest that you take your cameras over to Union Street across from the police station to photograph the 20 or so cars that park there illegally all day. I wonder who they belong to?

Who Tickets The Ticketers?

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