Call It Counterproductive
Parking Crackdown Drives Unions Wild

By MEREDITH KOLODNER

Some city unions reacted with alarm to Mayor Bloomberg's decision to reduce parking permits for municipal employees by 20 percent, a move that could strip Teachers and Police Officers of their ability to park near their stationhouses and schools during the workday.

MICHAEL J. PALLADINO: Cops should be exempt.

The cuts would take effect March 1.

'Unreasonable Request'

"There are schools all over the entire city and many are very difficult to get to," said United Federation of Teachers Vice President Michael Mulgrew. He noted that many Teachers can't afford to live in the city and drive significant distances to reach their schools. "The Mayor tells them to take public transportation, which is very nice," Mr. Mulgrew said, "but I don't think a 2- to 2-1/2-hour commute is reasonable."

Currently, individual city agencies issue the parking permits, estimated at about 70,000. That authority would be transferred to the Department of Transportation and the Police Department. The Mayor is also setting up a special enforcement unit inside the NYPD, which would enforce the stricter rules.

MICHAEL MULGREW: Going in wrong direction.

"Parking by the stationhouse is important, but equally important is being able to park when you go to court," said Michael J. Palladino, president of Detectives' Endowment Association. "Absent having a parking permit, valuable time that should be spent investigating cases will be spent on public transportation getting to court. These officers should not be subject to these restrictions."

But administration officials said that the change in policy would encourage the use of mass transit and help relieve traffic congestion and pollution.

'Won't Tolerate Abuse'

"Parking placards are a necessary tool for conducting city business, but we have no tolerance for their abuse, which contributes to congestion," Mr. Bloomberg said in a statement.

A spokeswoman from the Department of Education said that the agency has about 183 permits from the Department of Transportation and tens of thousands that it issues directly to employees. Currently, Teachers apply for parking to their Principals, whose approval is needed for the DOE to issue the permits. It is usually done on a first-come, first-serve basis.

But UFT officials say that they continually hear that there is not enough parking at many schools, especially high-needs schools that tend to be located in neighborhoods where there is poor access to public transportation.

They say they have repeatedly asked the city to issue more permits, only to be rebuffed and told that the matter must be taken up in collective bargaining.

Cuts Both Ways

The union fired off a letter to the Mayor on Jan. 4 after the plan became public. "If increasing parking availability is a bargaining issue," it reads, "then clearly, reduction is as well. Now you have apparently chosen, by fiat, to move forward a plan that would penalize the hardworking men and women who teach our city's kids."

The letter also notes that at a time when the city was seeking to retain more Teachers, about 40 percent of whom leave within the first three years, changing policy in a way that could make Teachers' lives more difficult was counter-productive.

"I understand the Mayor's concern about downtown Manhattan," said Mr. Mulgrew, "but most schools are not in lower Manhattan." The vast majority of Teachers are given permits that only allow them to park near their schools, during school hours, on school days.

No Decision Yet

DOE spokeswoman Margie Feinberg said that the agency had not yet determined how the cuts would be implemented.

The UFT letter concludes, "Teachers are not abusers of parking permits, and to publicly suggest that they are is deeply troubling. Holding abusers of parking privileges accountable for their actions should not be done at the expense of teachers whose jobs are hard enough already."

UFT officials are asking for a meeting with the administration in the hopes that it would reconsider or modify the plan's implementation.