Dear Editor:
If you can’t find a place to park blame no one but Mayor Russo and the leadership of the parking authority commissioners, which includes his wife, that he appoints. At the April 23 parking authority meeting I witnessed an incredible display of arrogance by its chairman Don Pellicano. I am now more certain than ever that our parking crisis will never be solved while Mayor Russo is in charge.
Last week in what is clearly an election year tactic, the city council passed a resolution to take by eminent domain a parking lot at Washington and Observer, if the parking authority cannot come to terms with its present owner. The problem is that the parking authority commissioners never said that they wanted the property in the first place. When a commissioner objected Parking Authority chairman Don Pellicano said simply that it was his mistake not to tell the other commissioners first. That he just assumed no one would object. A mere mistake? He just assumed? The matter of purchasing a piece of property must be put on the Authority’s agenda and then discussed and voted upon by the commissioners at an open public meeting.
During the same meeting Mr. Pellicano asked me if I was recording the meeting. I felt intimated and violated by the question and refused to answer. I told Mr. Pellicano that it is well within the rights of every member of the public to record a public meeting but Mr. Pellicano argued it was not so. Mr. Pellicano turned sheepish when the authority’s legal council told him that I do indeed have the right to record the meetings.
In other news, those of us waiting for parking spaces in the 916 Garden garage received a mailing from the Authority, which had attached to it a letter from the Mayor. The Mayor’s letter was a suggestion that everyone be given two months free once the garage opens. This letter is clearly meant to win over the votes of those who feel frustrated by the parking crunch he helped create. Whether or not the parking authority can even offer free parking as the mayor suggests may be a legal question that probably won’t be answered until after the election. That letter, Mr. Mayor, is an insult on the intelligence of every person that received it.
This Mayor and the parking commission he has appointed has done little to help Hoboken. If you don’t believe me then ask yourself this: In the past eight years how many spaces has the Parking Authority created in your neighborhood?
John Branciforte