It's well known that Mayor Bloomberg has cut down on parking permits for teachers. After all, it behooves a good teacher to spend twenty minutes trying to snag a parking space, or walk to school from Connecticut, if that's what it takes to maintain "accountability." You can't effectively implement "reforms" if you don't thoroughly inconvenience unionized employees on a regular basis for no reason whatsoever.
However, it's a little known fact that most teachers don't actually have parking permits and have to park on the street. Ask the teachers in many schools, who must park many, many blocks away from the workplace. Or ask the teachers at Francis Lewis High School, who can park near the school, but don't carry the much-coveted parking permits.
Last Friday, the city let Francis Lewis teachers know what was what. Around ten in the morning, they put up new signs, indicating that one side of the school was no longer available for parking. Shortly thereafter, all the cars were ticketed. The fact that the spaces were legal when they'd parked there made no difference whatsoever. My source reports this ticket will cost a hundred and fifty bucks, (correction-$115) and that perhaps several dozen teachers received these tickets.
Thus, it's another win-win for Mayor Bloomberg's New York. This new "reform" could mean a few thousand bucks in city coffers, and once more unionized employees will be held "accountable." Perhaps by future mid-day adjustments in parking regulations around schools, the city can not only make up its entire projected deficit, but save cash for future sports stadiums, which are always needed.
Perhaps they can designate wasteful parking space as classroom space. City students and teachers have long done without chalk, computers, paper, office space, soap, toilet paper, paper towels and windows. Who says they need ceilings or walls?
The possibilities are endless.
Thanks to Rex
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