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.”
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.