by @BarryRafkind in Announcements, City Finances, Politics, Press Release, Traffic & Parking
Posted on June 30, 2011 at 11:28 am
Last Modified on July 16, 2011 at 10:02 pm
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The following is a press release from the committee to support Joan Whitney Puglia for Ward 7 Alderman:
Contact: Barry Rafkind 617-863-6562 info@JoanForWard7.org
Ward 7 Alderman candidate Joan Whitney Puglia reacted today to new parking fee increases voted by the Traffic Commission at a hastily-called five-minute afternoon meeting on June 16th.
“To compensate for its unsound fiscal management, City Hall has already forced permit parking on streets where residents don’t want it, doubled meter rates, and grossly inflated fines,” she said. “Now we get hit again. Raising the cost of a resident parking sticker from $20 to $30 after having just raised its cost last year is unreasonable. Our next-door neighbor Medford charges only $10 for a resident sticker.”
Ms. Puglia advocates the following reforms:
- Eliminate permit parking on streets where residents don’t want it.
- Start street sweeping at 9:00 A.M. rather than 8:00 A.M.
- Return meter rates to 30 minutes for 25 cents.
- Require the Board of Alderman to set fees and fines, but only after a public hearing.
She believes that “City government should not misrepresent its hostile revenue-boosting scheme as a policy to improve parking conditions. For many residents it imposes greater hardship.”
Read more at JoanForWard7.org
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I’d love to have street sweeping start at 9 or even 8:30 am, but I have no problem with paying more for parking permits or even parking meters, when the payoff is that we get to keep teachers, police, fire fighters, and librarians, as well as other city services. I’d rather pay the extra $10 a year, personally.
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Thank you, Paula, for your comment. I shall try and clarify my thoughts on this subject for you.
Raising revenue is essential to the successful operation of any enterprise, public or private. Equally important, however, is the efficient expenditure of these revenues. This is the part of governing Somerville where I believe the Board of Aldermen has failed to be effective.
For example, in 1975 the Board of Aldermen passed an ordinance abolishing the then-vacant deputy police chief position. The police department functioned more than adequately without it for over 35 years. However, two years ago the current Board of Aldermen created not one but two, new deputy chief positions at a cost of over $300,000 per year.
The city also has several so-called police sub-stations on Broadway; one in East Somerville and one in Teele Square. They are of no substantive value whatsoever.
Indeed one cannot even file a simple police report on a motor vehicle accident at these sub-stations. One must go to the main station in Union Square to perform this simple task. Yet we must pay the rent for these sub-stations.
These are just two examples of the wasteful spending that has gone unchecked in this city government. There are many others I could cite but I believe these two illustrate the need to have a Board of Aldermen that analyzes the annual city budget with a critical, objective eye so that these kinds of expenditures are eliminated.
If the Board of Aldermen acted this way the magnitude, if not the entirety, of the recent hikes in resident sticker and other similar fees and fines would be unnecessary.
Thank you for the opportunity to share my views with you.
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Frankly the higher rate is not MUCH more than value, given that Somerville is still the most densely populated city in New England and the lack of parking generally. What is missing, however, is less a problem of money than one of policy: there should be some benefits to residing here. Those benefits could be a lower rate for those with stickers, two free tickets a year, or some similar method to reinforce a kind of Somerville First or Residents First priority. When it is merely an alternative tax, it ought to be more equitable and less arbitrary than a parking ticket.
And THAT is a very appropriate message for an Alderman to deliver. The failure of most of the Board members to deliver anything like this is quite notable and apparent.
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Joe,
Once again, you and I are on the same wavelength…
I suggested having residents (who have a current resident permit parking sticker) only pay meters until 6pm. I felt that this would boost the sale of parking stickers, promote car pooling, and frequenting local businesses.
I also wrote about it here: http://bit.ly/o42Alp
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speaking for myself and not the campaign of joan puglia to which i am a volunteer, i find the current ticketing policies abhorrent. the city apparently needs money, but the current program of ticketing is not reasonable, rather it is an extremely hostile program against the citizens of and visitors to somerville.
it is a system designed in the hope that parkers will fail and be fined. it is simply wrong for a goverment to pass laws hoping citizens will not succeed at obeying them, and thereby fill its coffers. it is also poor public policy to rely on fines to raise taxes. someday that well will run dry, and who will be tageted next, bycyclists? j-walkers? pedestrians who do not stop,look and listen before entering a crosswalk? all the above deserve to be ticketed also, even more so because public safety is involved. but do we really want to become ‘ticketville’?
it seems probable that raising taxes by fining people irrationally is possibly a violation of prop. two-and-a-half. taxes are taxes even if called fines.
when a government wants you to disobey its laws, it has gone too far.
citizens should know that the same people who enact and approve these fines are exempt from paying them. they have a “get out of jail free” placard to place on their dashboards allowing them to park anywhere they want, anytime they want.
a few ressonable changes would make the system fairer and still raise revenue.
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