Principal says de Blasio’s parking gift will lead to rampant misuse
Mayor de Blasio’s election-year gift of parking placards to all city school teachers and staffers will lead to rampant misuse, a Manhattan principal warned in an e-mail to the Department of Education.
“This is going to cause many challenges across the city with abuse and misuse, as in years past,” Marlon Hosang, principal of PS 64 on the Lower East Side, told the DOE last week.
“I already have staff members who live two blocks away celebrating that they now have their personal garage back,” he wrote.
Hosang urged the department to rethink the change and come up with a more “sensible solution.”
The principal told The Post he witnessed widespread abuse of the permits before former Mayor Mike Bloomberg cracked down on them in 2008, slashing the number of placards available to DOE workers from about 63,000 to 11,000.
“People were getting them and giving them to their uncles or cousins,” Hosang said.
The principals union took legal action and won back the right to their placards — but the city decided to give the permits to teachers, as well, according to the Council of School Supervisors & Administrators.
Political consultant Hank Sheinkopf has called the move an “election-year gift to interest groups.”
Hosang thinks there shouldn’t be more permits than spots.
I already have staff members who live two blocks away celebrating that they now have their personal garage back
“It invites misuse,” he said.
According to DOE guidelines, teachers and other staffers must provide proof of driver’s license and auto registration to obtain a placard.
PS 64 shares a building with two other schools, the Earth School and Tompkins Square Middle School — but there are currently only about 25 allotted parking spots for staffers from the three schools, Hosang explained.
Now all staffers will have placards, forcing them to jockey for a limited number of spots.
“They will have to go outside and park somewhere else,” Hosang said. “It’s going to create a challenge.”
De Blasio was blase about the matter Monday night, insisting there will be “consistent enforcement” of permit violations.
Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña even insisted she’d “never heard” about DOE staffers abusing their placard privileges.
“What is being more closely monitored this time around is that on these permits there will be the names of the school that the teacher is in so you can’t just use these permits to park anywhere in the city,” she said.
Some cops complained many education staffers will get a free pass.
“I don’t think cops will give them tickets,” one law-enforcement source said.
Additional reporting by Selim Algar